


Regeneration

by scifive



Category: The Incredibles (2004)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Enemies to Lovers, Every tag I can think of for safety, F/M, Gun Violence, Imprisonment, Nightmares, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Psychological Torture, Restraints, Torture, Unhealthy Power Dynamics, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-07-14
Updated: 2005-07-14
Packaged: 2019-04-20 06:44:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 34,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14255226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scifive/pseuds/scifive
Summary: Violet needs to regenerate. When not even winning feels right, where can she go to find herself?[Archival posting; originally written in 2005.]





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> This is an archival posting of a fic I wrote in 2005, originally posted to FanFiction.net. This was my one of my first-ever fanfics, and I can only apologise in advance.

It had been a simple but effective plan, really.

Violet Parr, twenty years of age, sat idly on the sandy white beach and let the cool water of the Caribbean wander around her toes. Her time was nearly up on St. Lucia, but it had been a good experience. She didn't regret moving on; it was easy to get settled, but she wanted to complete this one task ahead of her before heading back to the USA and using her university qualifications to get a good job. She wanted this one last taste of true, true freedom.

Today Violet wore loose, dark blue cotton shorts - practical for the tropical weather, durable for her purpose. Her thin shoulders were hunched up as she rested all of her weight on the palms of her hands, fingers pointed at right angles from her body. A khaki green vest top rested loosely on her slim form - something that she'd picked up cheaply at an army surplus store. It was tough and breathable, a must for what she wanted it for. Violet's hair wasn't as long as it used to be but it was as straight as ever. She'd had it cut about a year back, up toward her shoulders, more for practical reasons than anything else. When you were fighting the bad guys the last thing you needed was grabbable or trappable hair. Now Violet wore it back in a deep blue hairband to keep it out of her face.

Her face... now that had changed a little as well. It had lost some of its childhood roundness and assumed a more delicate chiaroscuro of features. Due to the tropical sun her eyes had lost some of the circles that ringed them and had bronzed her skin very, very slightly; Violet did not tan well.

A lot had changed for Violet's last five years; the child that had trembled before so many supervillains had faded a little... but was not entirely gone. Her eyes were as big as ever in her small face and her shyness had never vanished - her timidity was still a large part of her.

But this... the whole idea was marvellously simplistic. Violet had worked for a few months, enough to buy some equipment and a cheap plane ticket to Antigua, the Caribbean. Her idea was to do the eight islands from Antigua in a row (island-hopping, so to speak) and get a taste of life on each island. Once she had arrived on a new island she got a job doing whatever was nearest... picking fruits, working in tourist attractions, working in hotels. The money wasn't very good, but the plane fare was considerably cheaper in the Caribbean. It was fortunate that most of the inhabitants of the islands spoke English.

She was on her sixth island: St. Lucia. She had gone inland as far as possible, to Mount Grand Magazin and the Edmond Forest Reserve where there were popular tourist hiking attractions, and thus rest stops to be serviced... and where money could be made. Violet had college Spanish, French and German, and due to the variety of tourists from these more wealthy countries she found her services well-used there.

But now she was sat on the shore a little way from Hewarorra International Airport and biding her time until her flight was due to go. She didn't travel commercially; that was way too expensive. Instead, she paid a bit of money to travel with an export of whatever was heading her way... bananas, medical supplies, hotel supplies... it wasn't comfortable but it was cheap, and that's what Violet wanted.

When Violet had declared her intentions to her family they had been uncertain, but supportive. They had offered to help pay her way, but Violet had insisted that they hadn't. She needed this to be independent; to break away from those sorts of ties and use her time to become an adult.

At least, that's what she told them... it was true, but there was also more to it.

The truth was that she'd felt increasingly uncomfortable in her role as a superhero. Something didn't fit quite right. Yes, it was a noble profession, and she'd saved more lives than she could care to count, but the sheer in-your-face black/white morality of it made her unhappy. She was Good. They were Bad. Where exactly, she found herself wondering, was the dividing line between the two camps? Where was the grey area? Was a supervillain who robbed three banks to pay for a loved one's surgery still evil? Was a superhero who engaged in the occasional petty theft still good? What, when you got right down to it, was the difference (morally speaking)? So she was running away from it all for a while. One week per island, and six weeks so far.

But Violet had had Doubts.

She was due to hit the next island: Saint Vincent. But she looked to the East and she knew that Barbados was out there, calling to her. _I'll kick myself later if I don't at least visit_ was her reasoning, and so she'd extended her holiday by a week or so to go there.

The guy who ran the supply freights said he was dropping some supplies off at an island near Barbados - a new industrial base or something. Within the last couple of years there had been some grumpy volcanic activity around the Caribbean plate and a few more islands had popped into existence a couple of years ago, and due to the fertility and ferocity of volcanic soil they were lush with vegetation within a year and worth several million US$ each to rich buyers. The pilot said he could give her a pass to get to the mainland via a shipping boat, because he said he knew what it was like, trying to see the world on a dollar a day.

It was a good deal, better than she'd hoped for. Violet had accepted immediately.

Violet brought herself back to the present as she reluctantly dragged her feet from the warm waters. She towelled them dry and slipped on her hiking trainers. Technically, she wasn't allowed onto the beach this close to the airport, but her invisibility had taken care of that. Stuffing her towel into her rucksack and sighing, she headed off to the airport.

-

When Violet arrived at the airport, the whole shenanigan was in full swing. Tourists were being spewed from terminals, and slightly less were being sucked into them.

Violet sat down on a bench. She was way early and the guy at the planes had warned her to be only fifteen minutes early, lest the loading crew get grumpy with someone in the way. '10:41 am' was blinking on and off above the information kiosk at the other end of the hallway. Violet took the chance too look around.

The airport was gleaming of the space age: all chrome and white and sterile, but with a curiously used look. It wasn't welcoming but it didn't exactly throw you out onto the pavement, either. It was simply functional. Violet was sitting in some seats that backed into a wall, which artfully hid the steps leading down to the public conveniences; a long corridor yawned left and right. To the right, the entrance, exists and information kiosk; to the left were shops and suchlike. Straight ahead was check-in. Violet's eyes located the sign for 'air freight' and she prepared to get up.

A resounding explosion rocked the ground. Violet started in fright, as did everyone else.

" _Behold... the Maelstrom!"_

The crowds of people turned to witness a man in a ridiculously gold costume floating into the building through a hole in the ceiling, and Violet slipped down the steps which marked the entrances to the bathrooms.

_Okay, Vi. You know the drill..._

The loose, green cotton vest top came off to expose a tighter red vest top with a large black omega symbol on it. Her knee-length blue shorts joined the discarded pile of clothing to show a shorter pair of tighter black shorts. She slipped on the light black gloves, flung her rucksack down, and prepared for the off.

Before leaving for the trip, Violet had made an appointment with dearest Edna Mode, and explained her needs to her... hot tropical environment, temporary costume, etc. Edna had risen to the challenge quite magnificently, along with an order to return as soon as she got back for the designing of her new, full-time adult costume, dahling, you will _die_ for it. Violet didn't want to be known as a baby Incredible forever.

Lastly, the mask was placed delicately over the eyes.

Violet took a moment to take a deep breath, trying to ignore the collapse of masonry and distant screams. She was always nervous before a fight. She bounced anxiously on the balls of her feet, shaking her hands slightly, limbering up her wrists. Her mouth turned upwards slightly in a predatory smile.

She turned, switched on her invisibility field, ran up the steps, rounded the corner with neat precision and headed toward the source of the chaos.

Now Violet was actually headed toward him she got a good look at her foe.

The first thing that she noticed didn't catch her eye but slapped her full in the face, proverbially speaking. The guy was wearing a costume fashioned from gold and yellow material. Violet filed this under 'pretentious ass' - handle with care. Arrogant and fiery. His mask was black, a striking contrast, and covered most of his head. It flowed over his shoulders into a magnificent black cape that had interesting amber designs on it. Violet was forcibly reminded of another supervillain she'd encountered a few years ago... small mask, flashy costume, thought a lot of himself... he'd passed a few wolf-whistles her way as he wrecked the city zoo, and Violet had taken the liberty of flirting with him a little before taking him down. That was back in the days of the Ye Olde Incredible Outfitte, and she'd been what? Sixteen, seventeen?

Violet pulled herself to a stop to survey the golden-clothed dimwit gesturing wildly about himself and giving some inane speech about how his secret base would start here. Violet brought up her hands to conjure a shield around him -

Someone screamed -

Violet dived sideways and the arm that was going to attack Maelstrom flew to point elsewhere. Instantly, a faint purple shield popped into existence around a woman and a child, which made the large chunk of ceiling bounce off of them harmlessly. This brought a side-effect Violet could have really not used. The entire ceiling caved in.

Violet shook her head slightly to clear the dust from her vision, arms extended above her head. The entire ceiling for the terminal rested two meters above the floor as Violet's shield-platform protected everyone who hadn't managed to get out already. Her mouth set into a grim line, Violet manoeuvred the ceiling a little to the left, bent her arms, and _pushed_.

It had been a long time since she was that young teenager, and in that time her powers had grown considerably. She was now fully proficient in the uses of her shields... and there were now more than one. She could erect a skintight layer of shield around her, to save energy. She could hold shields outside of her concentration for up to four hours... she'd practised this one. She could wrap herself in a shield and force her way through a wall. She could extend parts of her shield - if she was underwater, she could send a thin tube up for air.

And if an enemy was trapped inside one she could cut off his or her air until loss consciousness... or death. It was narrow window. So far, there had been no slip-ups.

The rubble slid down the makeshift slide to pile at one end of the terminal, leaving the entrance clear. The people didn't need her to tell them - they ran. The ground beneath her had begun to ripple. Violet did not like this at all.

Thankfully, the terminal was now emptied. The terminal was no longer... well, terminal.

There was dust everywhere. Violet cursed silently; invisibility would be well-nigh pointless now. It was using up energy. She reappeared to find Maelstrom staring at her in irritation.

"Look, I'm trying to take over an island. Could you come back later?"

A shield shimmered into existence around him, and Maelstrom's expression degenerated into panic. Violet stood her ground, waiting.

The ground below her exploded in a fury of lava and red-hot anger.

Her attention was ripped away from Maelstrom to bring up a shell of power underneath herself before she became kentucky-fried Violet. Running in the shield like a hamster in a ball, Violet manoeuvred her way from a pond of lava to more stable ground, but felt the telltale drain in her powers: not much, but a little. To protect herself from the lava she had needed a constantly renewing shield, and this had taken its toll.

She coughed and tried to peer through the dust in front of her. A growing silhouette marked the slow and bored approach of her foe.

Instantly, the ground around Violet erupted in a growing, spreading doughnut-ring of lava, leaving her unscathed at the centre. Maelstrom walked over this lava with what seemed like no ill-effects.

"Well, well... what have we here?"

Violet didn't answer. Inside her head, she was praying. _Please... monologue, monologue..._

"Who are you, anyway?" he asked delicately, a sneer not quite leaving his covered face.

"Well, I don't have name yet... I don't want to be saddled with _Incredigirl_ forever, you know."

The floor beneath her was rippling again. Violet tried to keep an eye on her surroundings and on 'Maelstrom' at the same time.

"Incredigirl? You were the one who defeated... Zaphead, right?"

"Yeah?"

"Second cousin of mine. Not very bright."

"Terminally stupid, I would venture. Appears to run in the family."

Maelstrom's face creased slightly in irritation. "Watch your mouth," he said darkly, eyes glittering strangely. Then that expression was gone... but it was enough to prove to Violet that she was dealing with a run-of-the-mill bad guy with big ideas here, not a genuine supervillain. Supervillains were usually quite efficient at their tasks, and this one was way too emotional and flamboyant.

"Say, how would you like to be my beautiful princess? I need one for the base, you know."

Violet's mind was thrown off track. She straightened up from her fighter's crouch and rubbed her head in disbelief.

"What? No!"

Now that she was this close to him, she could make out a few more details. His eyes were black of iris, which gave her the startlingly unnerving impression that his eyes were too big and too small at the same time. His cape stopped short at the waist, possibly for the sake of practicality. And he bore a very, very slight resemblance to that fool who had made passes at her right before she had ground his face into the dirt. Her eyes widened in recognition.

"Zaphead... Zaphead? Oh, now I remember him..." Zoo boy. The flirt. "What a Godawful twerp. Put it this way: if my dad had found out what he was trying to do, he'd have been a small sticky patch on the floor."

"Hmmm... yes, it was his style. He was related to Gamma Jack, you know, that might be why... superhero from a while back."

"He's dead." _Keep talking, keep talking... let me build up a layer of shield over the magma thick enough to support my running away..._

"Dead?"

"Syndrome got him... five, six years back."

"But I digress. You, little Incredigirl, are going to die, because you stand in my way. How would you like to die?"

_That's more like it._

"Old age?"

"Very funny. But you know how I'm going to kill you? I think I'm going to drown you slowly in lava. And I can do that because this here island is located on a plate boundary... which means I can call this lava whenever I need to. It'll be fun to see you slowly -"

Violet turned and she _ran_. She ran as fast as it was humanly possible, phasing out as she did so now that the dust had settled. Now Maelstrom couldn't see her or how she was getting away. And as she ran, she dissolved her shields behind her.

Maelstrom's cry of fury cut through the air. Violet turned, when she judged she was a suitable distance away, and raised her hands. Fighting from a distance... this was her speciality. Up close, things got complicated.

A shield flowed into the air near Maelstrom. A flow of lava smashed into it, and Violet let it dissolve. The whole idea was to confuse him...

Another shield popped into existence a little further away, and Maelstrom swore. His hand extended to the shield and it was swamped with glowing molten rock, which instantly hardened into a thick rock shell. Violet let the shield phase out, and the rock fell into the surrounding lake of magma.

Slowly, Violet began to approach Maelstrom, using her shields as platforms. Due to the fact that the lava glowed, Maelstrom had not noticed any purple shimmers.

Violet conjured a shield behind Maelstrom, forcing him to turn his back to her. She quietly got close to him. Maelstrom was angrily attacking this shield, which held strong -

Violet tapped him on the shoulder, surrendering her invisibility. His expression was classic, right up 'till she punched him. Hard.

The lake of magma began to cool as he collapsed, darkening and hardening into rock. Maelstrom bit the dust just as police ran into the entrance.

"Freeze!" they yelled in heavily accented English. Violet held up her hands.

"I got him," she offered. The police lowered their weapons slightly, sending each other confused looks. Violet slung Maelstrom's unconscious form over her shoulder, and hard feat for such a slim girl, and dragged him toward the entrance. The lava had cooled completely now, forming a rippling surface of igneous rock instead of a floor. The blue tropical sky shone down on them.

Violet felt marginally better, but knew she would make up the following morning with a very mild headache. She had expended more power than she thought she might have. She dumped Maelstrom on the floor.

"Lock him up someplace cold," she advised, and then set off at a run for her clothes.

She had a plane to catch, and it left in less than five minutes.

-

Gasping for breath, Violet sat back in the secondary pilot's seat. The pilot was grinning at her.

"That was impressive, the way you caught the plane just as I was taxiing out," he said wryly. "Thinking of running for the Olympics?"

Violet shook her head. She was still too tired to speak.

"Well... what happened to the airport? I heard crashes and screams, but I think the best way to stay out of trouble is not to investigate it."

The pilot had introduced himself as Snug. He had an open, ruddy face with a grin that stretched from ear to ear. His brown eyes twinkled beneath his blue baseball cap, where a couple of tufts of brown-streaked-grey hair poked out. He had a weather-beaten face and seemed entirely too casual to be flying this plane, but Violet knew from watching her mother that this man was completely in control of the craft.

Finally, Violet got some air into her lungs that wasn't immediately demanded by some part of her body.

"Supervillain attack."

"I thought so."

Violet shot him an incredulous look. "What do you mean?"

He nodded towards the pocket of her shorts, where a corner of her mask peeped out. Turning red with embarrassment, Violet shoved it back in.

"Don't worry about it," said Snug, grinning in the silence. "I've had to keep a few secret identities of superheroes quiet before. Hey... aren't you a little young for this kind of work?"

"No."

"You can't be what... sixteen?"

"Twenty, actually," said Violet, riled. Snug had the decency to look chastised.

"Sorry about that. It must be the tan."

Violet sat back, slightly appeased.

"I taught a superhero to fly once," said Snug conversationally. Violet arched an eyebrow. "When?"

"About twenty, twenty-five years back... must have been. Back in the days when I was a lad in his mid-twenties. I was still young enough to think that flying goggles looked good."

Snug grinned, not taking his eyes from the windscreen. Violet's mouth twitched at the corners.

"Yeah, she was pretty famous, back then, before the whole 'superhero rights movement' thing started. Elastigirl, she was called -"

" _Mom?_ " said Violet, startled, before she could stop herself. "You taught my mom how to fly planes?"

Snug looked at her sharply, grin vanishing, and Violet saw a harsh intelligence in those eyes that she hadn't seen before. His look pierced her to the bone.

"So that would make you..."

"Violet Parr."

Snug nodded to himself, eyes back to the clouds, still deadly serious.

"Ayuh," he said softly. "It would. It's been a while since I talked to your mom... few months, I think? We talk every now and then. Reminisce about life before the politics, you know, when I'd fly her to her missions... then she had to learn for when I wasn't there. She was a quick learner, and she had a knack for flying - quite a show-off, when it came to it."

Violet remembered the antics of Syndrome's missiles and said nothing.

Then Snug's grin was back, as if it had never gone away.

"Then she got married to Mr. Incredible, right before the whole thing started, and there was no need for me any more. For a while, she'd come down for a quick practise every now and then... until she caught pregnant with you, Vi."

Violet offered him a sheepish smile.

"It's not your fault, and she needed to settle down... when she was younger your mother was quite the heartbreaker."

Violet offered Snug a pointed look. Snug caught its meaning.

"Oh, no, Helen and I were never _that_ kind of friends," he said, and his grin widened, if that were possible. "I ain't married and I intended to stay that way. A pilot's life ain't good for the family. Speaking of family, don't you go by a different last name to the passport authorities after that business with Syndrome?"

"Yeah. Loads of his computer data was missing, specifically about supers, specifically about us, when the cops busted in. Whoever has it has our last names, so we had to alter it for the official records. On my passport I'm Violet Dee. For school and stuff, we're still Parr. The Agency wangled that one."

Snug nodded absently. "When was the last time you talked to your mom?"

"About six weeks ago... a write postcards every few days though."

"Ayuh," he repeated softly. "Thought so. There's a phone just around there. Tell her I say hi."

Violet stared at him.

"You mean it?" she asked at last.

Snug threw her a mock-irritated look. "Of course. Now scram."

Violet scrambled out of her seat and into the cargo hold. There was indeed a black phone on a hook on the wall. It was labelled 'for emergency use only'.

Violet picked it up, dialled the USA international code number, and then her house number.

It began to ring.

Violet twisted the cord around her finger, biting her lower lip.

"Hello?"

_Mom._

Violet exhaled.

"It's me, mom," she said.

They talked backwards and forwards for a while. Violet filled her parents in on how she was doing, and in return she heard about what had happened in their lives. It was refreshing. Eventually, they said their goodbyes, and Violet hung up. She made her way slowly to the cockpit.

"Good chat?" asked Snug amicably, his rough accent breaking the silence.

"Yeah. Mom says sorry about that jet a few years back."

"She never did tell me what she did with it."

"It got blown up."

"Sweet Lord above..."

"We were in it."

"What?"

"About two thousand feet above the sea, as it happened, and fifty miles from land."

Violet found she didn't enjoy telling the story. She leant back in her seat and stared out of the windscreen. Snug, glancing at her, decided not to push the issue. The flew on in silence for a little while.

Violet's memories of Syndrome were so... hazy. It was a long time ago, but she'd done her best to block out some of the memories... the ones that hurt. It had not been a pleasant experience, fighting for her life, and so far, it had been her nastiest.

But she remembered Syndrome's personality.

Cocky, arrogant, convinced of his victory, until the Incredibles had chopped him off at the knees (proverbially speaking) and thrown a sports car at him. They never did find out what had happened to him, although shreds of cloak were found in the engine of the jet he'd been using.

Violet's attention was refocused when Snug sat up straight, his mouth a grim line.

"What? What is it? Violet asked urgently, alarmed. Snug shook his head, but his mouth was still ruler-edged.

"I don't like this," he said quietly. "I got bad vibes from this island. There's something down there and I don't want to know what it is."

Violet glanced down at the island appearing over the horizon as Snug began to descend. The journey had taken about ten minutes if you excluded the time it took to set off.

"What do you mean?"

"Kid, I've flown into nasty places before and always got some kind of vibes. Good vibes, bad vibes, normal vibes."

It was then Violet noticed Snug was deeply unsettled, and the hairs of the back of her neck stood up. Someone so sure of himself becoming uncomfortable? Never a good sign.

"But I don't like these ones. Not at all."

The plane touched down and decelerated to a stop. Snug took his hands off of the controls and looked at her, hard.

"You promise me, kid, that you get off of this island as soon as you can," he said in a low voice. "I wish I could give you a ride out but I'm going to the Dominican Republic and I don't have permission to stop long at Barbados. Here."

He handed her a rectangular square of plastic. It told Violet that she was entitled to free travel aboard the shipping routes.

"Won't you need this?"

"No. I've lost it." Snug tapped his nose and grinned, although it wasn't his sunshine of a beam up in the air. Violet grabbed her rucksack and made to stand up, but Snug had leaned over and put his hand on her shoulder. "I mean it," he said carefully. "I really do. You have no idea how bad I feel leaving you here."

Violet offered him a grin of her own.

"I'm a superhero. What could happen?"

 


	2. II

When Violet stepped out onto the island, her first thought was _businesslike_. The port was a multitude of vehicles, amphibious or otherwise, and there were working people everywhere. Violet decided the best approach would be businesslike herself. She approached the nearest group of talking workmen.

"When's the next boat to Barbados?" she asked firmly. One of the men turned from their conversation and gave her an appraising look.

"We don't do tourist shipping." Violet flashed the blue plastic card. The man nodded as if this was perfectly normal. "Day after next," he said, and rejoined his conversation.

Violet thanked him and walked straight into the harbour building to survey her home for the next two days.

-

Violet was sat in the harbour worker's cafe with a cup of coffee and a faraway expression when a woman in blue overalls plonked herself unceremoniously in front of her. She had yellow-blonde hair tied back in a ponytail and a curiously closed face, as if expressions weren't something that she welcomed readily, although her smile seemed natural. Her blue eyes looked at her thoughtfully.

"Should you be here? We don't deal in tourists." Her accent was Oxford English.

Violet showed her the blue card. She took it and glanced it over.

"Fair enough. Where are you trying to get to?"

"Barbados. And you'd be...?"

"Oh, sorry. I'm Catrina, but every calls me -"

"Cat?"

"No, Red."

Violet looked at her bluntly. She was wearing blue overalls with blonde hair and blue eyes. She raised her eyebrows. 'Red' nodded.

"I sunburn easily. I work in a tropical environment, so..."

Violet grinned in spite of herself and nodded.

"So, Barbados... you'll be hanging around for how long? Two days?"

"Yeah... pretty much. I figured I can camp out, and I have some cash left... the dollar seems to be hard currency here."

"Yeah. You're brave, camping out... do you know what kind of animals are in those trees?"

Violet allowed herself a smirk. "I can hold my own."

Red raised her eyebrows. "You know what? I believe you. But I have a better idea. The workers get a common room if their ship doesn't leave for a while, and dormitories are provided, for both the men and the women. It'd probably be safer, and warmer."

"The temperatures drop at night," said Violet, who knew well. There had been times when she hadn't been able to find shelter and had camped out in her emergency hammock in caves and suchlike. _Brrrr_.

"Yeah. So what do you think?"

Violet nodded slowly. It seemed like a good idea. She grabbed her rucksack and stood up. "Where can I find it?"

"I'll show you. I've got a three-hour break. Plane I'm meant to be looking at has given up the ghost on the mainland." Red offered Violet a friendly smile as they headed through the harbour building. "So, what are you doing here? You're a long way from home."

"Island hopping. One week, one island. I'm trying to get to Barbados to finish the tour."

"Finished the Leeward Islands?"

"Yeah, most of them. I'm on the home stretch now."

They were passing heavy industrial machinery now, but Red seemed to know where she was going.

"So, this isn't a tourist destination then?"

Red shook her head. "No, it's privately owned. Some kind of science project... cybernetics or something like that."

"Robots," mused Violet. Alarm bells started to ring inside her head. Red shot her a sharp look, softened with a grin. "You're fast. So, they need lots of people to help support the docks for supplies. Engineers -" Red mock-bowed, " - boat captains, crews, pilots, that kind of thing, and they all need someplace to sleep." Red continued to explain the processes to her, but Violet listened with only half an ear.

Violet had become well-versed in the lies that shrouded supervillain bases, having encountered several, with and without her family to help her, on purpose and by accident. This one smacked of secrecy. No doubt there would be doors no-one could enter and suchlike. She began to feel the first inkling of Snug's uneasy feelings: she was here, all alone, and nobody knew where she was - her family all thought she was on Barbados.

She resurfaced to hear: " - and everyone has a free run of the harbour and the grounds surrounding it, but they like to admit as few people as possible to the research lab." _Aha_ , thought Violet. "There are these religious nuts who think robots are the work of Satan. I agree with them every time a plane lands that should rightly have been sent to the scrapheap long ago, but we've already had a couple of infiltration efforts."

"How many?"

"Two in as many years, ever since the whole thing was set up. The security here is remarkably good, but you'll be all right - that blue card you've got is like a diplomatic passport."

"What?" said Violet, genuinely startled. Red nodded. "It gives free travel on any ship that caries cargo... you can go all over the world with it. Usually only the most trusted pilots and officers get them. They're not usually replaceable."

Violet looked at the card with a slight feeling of guilt. If she had known what it was she wouldn't have accepted it. Then she remembered what her mom had said on the phone, about Snug owning a whole airport of planes, and felt a little better about it.

They arrived at a wooden door with 'private' marked on it in shiny black letters. There was a small card slot.

"Put the card in," advised Red. Violet inserted it into the slot. A green light came on momentarily, and the door slid open. Violet raised her eyebrows as she stepped in and prepared to make herself feel comfortable.

-

"Well?"

"We've run the scans. She seems to have the same skeletal structure as the super on St. Lucia."

"Same girl?"

"Possibly... you could run a scan on that 'Maelstrom' loser and a complete stranger and they might be very similar."

"Did you get a good look at her face?"

"She had her back to the camera when she didn't have the mask on. We only saw her with it on. And it would have been impossible to check facial structures with it on."

"Do we even know how old she is?"

"Passport check says she was twenty; look, here's the security footage. Personally, I don't think she looks older than sixteen. Apparently, her name is Violet Dee."

"Fake name?"

"Almost certainly."

"Why that camera was focused on the steps to the bathrooms... I mean, what a place to put a camera..."

"It's the best we've got. All of the others were destroyed in the fight. No-one even saw what her powers were."

"I don't like it. Keep her on surveillance. If she's a super, she'll show herself soon."

-

It was her first and last full day on the island. Violet had eaten and was slipping her feet into her hiking trainers. She fully intended to explore the grounds of this place - as far as she was allowed to go. If this place really was a supervillain lair, then she didn't want to risk being caught. Best to stay safe.

Violet wandered out into the main building, and sought the exit. After some directions and a few wrong turns, she finally made it out into the hot, tropical sunshine.

It was a delight on her skin. Violet also noted a slight, cool breeze blowing around the island, which was pleasantly refreshing. She headed inland.

Lots of other people had similar ideas, she noticed. The harbour was an intensely busy place. Many people had stripped off as much clothing as was decent and were sunbathing, throwing a ball around, surfing.

Violet surveyed what the island had to offer.

For a stretch in front of her there was green grass; a sort of lawn on the gently undulating land. Behind her, on the coast, a white beach stretched away. Ahead of her and past the people, a forest of dense trees appeared and yawned away and up, as far as the eye could see across the island. Violet let her gaze travel up the side of a gently sloping hill to the horizon line. The hill seemed remarkably near to be either a volcano or the end of the island.

"Not much of a volcano, huh?" remarked a voice. Violet turned to see Red following her gaze. Violet grinned. "No," she confirmed.

"That'd be because that isn't the volcano. You see, the volcano that formed this place is underwater, so when the magma cooled it left a sort of funnel shape. From that hill there it all leads downwards."

"Like a funnel?"

"Yeah, and a pretty big one. Aerial survey says at least five miles across. And it all leads down to a volcano entrance."

Violet pondered this. "Has the crater filled up with water?" she asked at last. It seemed pretty reasonable.

"Strangely, no. Life got there first. Trees and whatnot, the whole way down."

Violet giggled at the word 'whatnot'. It seemed so... _British_. Red noticed her amusement, and laughed too. "You try being the only British person on this island," she said with a grin. "Most everyone is American, or local."

Violet nodded her apology, and Red seemed satisfied. It was strange to see Red out of her overalls; this was evidently her day off or something. She was in a green pair of shorts and a white vest top with her ID badge pinned to her pocket. Her long, yellow-blonde hair was carefree over her shoulders. Her pale skin glowed in the sunlight. Already she had a pinkish tinge over her shoulders, even though her skin was shiny with sunblock.

"How far inland can we go?" asked Violet experimentally.

Red shrugged. "See that tower, over there?"

Violet scrunched up her eyes. It was just possible to make out the tip of what looked like a manmade structure, if you squinted and looked at the top of the hill. "That's as far as we can go. Draw a straight line North to South across the island with the tower in the middle, and there you go. That's about..." Red closed her eyes, lips moving as she calculated. "About fifty square miles, we've got, and most of it as never seen a human being."

Violet raised her eyebrows and pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. "That's a pretty big eruption."

"That's tectonic activity for you. If it had been an earthquake, it would have measured 9.45 on the Richter scale. And fifty square miles is only half the island."

"Is the volcano still active?"

"You bet. We've got early warning systems which can give warning of a definite eruption up to two days in advance, and up to a week for a 'maybe' eruption. We're pretty well protected." Red seemed mildly amused by it. Violet saw the black humour: A few days, the island would be destroyed, and they'd have to start over. It would be like watching the cycle of creation finish, and then start again.

"What about the poor losers in the robotics facility? How do they get out?" asked Violet, teasingly.

Red flashed her a grin. "They don't. The whole thing is underground. The only way they would be in any danger would be if the island broke up, and the chances of that happening are practically nil. Islands don't break up that easily." Violet nodded to herself, and bit her lower lip in contemplation. "In fact," continued Red, "We've got reports to expect a very minor earthquake today... nothing too exciting. Just a tremor - you'll feel it, but barely."

Violet grinned, her natural paranoid survival instincts kicking in. "No chance of an eruption?"

"None. No sign of harmonic tremor on the instruments - that would show moving lava."

Violet, for the first time, threw Red a shrewd glance.

"How come you know so much about geology?"

"I did it at University as a hobby, along with engineering, but they'd got all the geologists they wanted here. I lend a hand sometimes when someone's ill, or needs the night shift covering. I've also got a good qualification in medical science, and I'm usually the one people go to if they're ill."

Violet nodded, and smiled at Red. "Smarter than the average bear, huh. So no explosion?"

"No," confirmed a grinning Red. "In fact, all the signs point to the island settling down a little."

Violet nodded, brow creased in a mock-frown. "That's always good to hear."

-

"So... what do you think?"

"Huh?"

"D'you think she's a super?"

"The boss doesn't put someone on surveillance without good cause."

"That didn't answer my question."

"If we get caught having this conversation we'll probably be shot, you know."

"Yep. Answer the question."

"I honestly don't know. Passport check didn't show up much, but the Agency could have covered that easily. It is a government subsect, after all."

"What's she doing now?"

"Uh... she's in the grounds. Camera three six eight."

"She's with some woman. Identify?"

"Catrina McIntyre. British. Chief engineer."

"..."

"Stop staring at the monitor. What is it?"

"What if she is a super? I mean, will she defeat... him?"

"I shouldn't think so. He's pretty hard-edged."

"You would know. You're the only one he talks to when it comes to security."

"He doesn't trust people."

"I'm not surprised. Look at your predecessor."

"Good point."

"Still... do you think?"

"You know what? If I say no, we'll get demolished. If I say yes, she won't be a super. Murphy's law. I'll reserve judgement."

-

Violet kicked a small pebble as she wandered aimlessly across the grounds. She hadn't entered the forest, on the basis that anything supervillain-y would be taking place in there, and Violet wanted to stay as far away from it as possible. She didn't trust it, although her vague feeling of disquiet had disappeared. She reckoned she could get out of here unscathed.

There was absolutely no evidence for a hidden lair of any kind, but for some reason Violet assumed it was there... she didn't know why. Maybe it was finely-honed instincts telling her something, and it would be wise not to ignore them.

Aimlessly, she headed back to the harbour, simply enjoying the sunshine and the play of the wind on her skin.

It was about one o'clock in the afternoon, and Violet felt just fine. She turned to face the wind, hands by her sides, shut her eyes and let the breeze dance across the sensitive skin of her eyelids.

Violet stayed like this for a long time, thoroughly enjoying herself. It had been quite a while since she had really been able to let the tension drain from her shoulders. She'd been on the move non-stop for the last six weeks... it really was fantastic to just rest for a while.

Violet carefully lay down on the grass and folded her arms behind her head. It was peaceful here, a way away from the harbour and all its bustle. She was properly relaxed, for the first time in too long. She was consciously aware of every part of her body, and what it was doing. Her very blood felt alive and fizzy.

The grass rippled in concentric circles, all around her. She viewed the azure sky through half-lidded eyes, eyelashes blocking some of the glare from the sun.

It was calm. Birds sang. The trees swished lightly. Violet shut her eyes properly and, without knowing it, slept.

-

Violet awoke because there were no more birds in the nearby trees. They had been scared away by the impending earthquake.

Violet sat up and rubbed her head. _It must be that earthquake that was predicted,_ she thought sleepily. This sent a jolt of unease through her. Light or not, the idea of the ground moving beneath her did not appeal at all.

Violet started back to the harbour at a light jog; she wanted to get back and find a familiar face before the whole thing started. She wouldn't admit it, but she was nervous. Not scared; that would suggest that the whole earthquake was going to be a lot higher than predicted, but just plain paranoiac nervousness.

The harbour building came into view. If it was possible, even more people had come outside into the glorious sunshine. It seemed that the entire population was out to get a front row seat for the earthquake. Violet stood at the edge of the crowd, biting her lower lip, looking about nervously. Red couldn't be seen.

"Hey! Violet!"

Her head whipped around to find that Red had found her first. She was waving and walking over.

"Hey, Violet. Here to see the show?"

"Um, yeah."

"This is about the time all the wags on the beach start yelling 'cowabunga'. Surfers. Tch."

"Er... what do you mean, 'now'?"

"I mean _now_."

The ground began to shake. Violet's face blanched a little, and Red smiled at her, eyes flashing. "Don't worry about it. I was scared first time, too."

'Shake' was an exaggeration. The ground barely trembled - it was like the vibration of a guitar string. As soon as it was over people began cheering. Violet shot Red a confused look. Red shrugged as she grinned. "It's sort of traditional now."

Violet gave a shaky smile and they headed toward the harbour building with the rest of the crowd.

Reaching the deserted dormitories, Red collapsed theatrically onto a sofa. Violet grinned at her friend's dramatic sigh of relief as she picked up a newspaper. There was dust on it. Frowning, Violet shook it off, just as the soft pitter-patter of more falling dust announced itself. Except it wasn't dust. It was... white. Like plaster.

Violet looked up.

One of the metal joints in the ceiling had come loose, very slightly, but it was enough for it to be poking through a hole in the ceiling. And it was enough for the plaster to be sagging, for the wooden infrastructure to be creaking horribly and for a deep sense of foreboding to unravel in the pit of her stomach.

"Er, Red," she said cautiously, as if by lowering her voice the ceiling would stay exactly where it was, thank you very much.

"Yeah?"

"The ceiling... um, the ceiling..."

Red looked up.

The world stopped for a moment. Then a chunk of the ceiling gave way.

Violet acted without thinking. Survival instincts made stronger by constant use snapped into action. Violet lunged forwards, grabbed Red, dragged her to the centre of the floor and brought a shield into existence around them as a large chunk of mismatched wood, metal and plaster landed on top the sofa, flinging debris everywhere.

Red uncurled from her ball just in time to catch the purple shield around them winking out of existence.

"Did you - what was - are you - "

Violet stood up slowly, prepared for a fresh onslaught. Rubbing her head, she viewed the roof critically. The rest of the ceiling was sound enough; there were no more cracks, creaks or groans.

Red was looking at her fearfully, and Violet offered her a hand to help her up.

-

"Oh my God."

"Sweet Jesus."

"Call in the guards. Do it now. I'll phone the boss."

"Right. I'm on it."

"Operator, connect me to the base HQ. Thanks... Sir?"

"Yes, this had better be good."

"Sir, that girl is a super. We have the video footage. And you'll never guess which one."

"Don't play games."

"Sir, it's the Incredible girl."

"What?"

"Sir, it's Mr. Incredible's daughter."

-

Red looked at her for a moment, before reaching out her own hand -

There was a loud, resounding crash as the door to the dorms burst open, and fifteen heavily-armed men with automatic weapons ran in and trained those weapons on Violet. Each man was dressed in grey, nondescript army gear and with grey helmets and visors. The click of weapons being primed resonated throughout the room.

"Freeze!"

Violet did the only thing that made sense.

She phased out and she _ran_.

-

Violet ran and ran and ran. Sometimes the soldiers sounded right on her tail, and sometimes they sounded some distance away. Pausing for breath at a stream, she wiped her forehead, and carried on running.

She had no idea where she was headed. She just needed to be away from the men with the big guns. She did think, however, that she was wandering into enemy territory so she paused under a tree, invisible, to consider her next move.

Okay; so the fight-or-flight instinct had kicked in and she had chosen flight. The brain has been carried all this way at great expense... now it's time for it to do some work.

Violet glanced back the way she had come. Shouts drifted across the still air. They didn't know where she had gone. Just as well.

Slowly, very quietly and very meticulously Violet began to walk back the way she had come. She had barely gone fifty metres when she saw the soldiers, arranged in a group. She stopped short. She had had no idea that they were that close.

"Set visors on infra-red. She might be invisible but she'll still give off heat."

Every soldier put a hand up to his eye-covering visor and tapped it a couple of times. Violet didn't even have a chance.

"There she is!"

Violet, bringing herself back to visibility, brought up a shield just in time as a hail of bullets splattered into it. Violet turned to run, but she was surrounded on every side. Her shield disappeared as she lost the meagre concentration it took to keep it going. The fresh adrenaline surging through her bloodstream cut off any rational thought as her heart rate tripled and her breathing rose in rapidity. Panic, never good at the best of times, had battered its way into her nervous system and refused to let her brain take control. _There had to be a way out._ Had _to._

The soldiers were closing in on her, so Violet gave in to the prey instincts, brought a shield around herself and _pushed_. It blew the armed soldiers away, slamming them into tree trunks and dropping them unceremoniously to the ground. Violet turned to run.

She didn't even see the rock as it smashed into her skull. She went down and hard, the adrenaline in her brain still roaring, still screaming for the run, still trying to move her now curiously weak body.

Violet's collapse was slow. First, her knees had a meeting with the packed earth beneath her. Her back slumped, and then (for no readily apparent reason) the ground tilted itself ninety degrees and slapped her on the back.

Her eyes open, but feeling curiously dreamlike, Violet watched as the soldiers approached. One of them said something into a walkie-talkie, but the words sounded jumbled to Violet's confused mind.

That same soldier said something to her, but her mind made no sense of the words. All she was aware of was the thick leaf litter beneath her back, the smell of the forest and the silhouette of branches against a cheerfully blue sky. Everything was warm, everything was beautiful. Curiously, nothing in her body would move. She felt paralysed, but this could not be right. Her body felt asleep, not dead.

The man shook his head. He then crouched down next to Violet and pushed her head slightly to one side, exposing the web of flesh where neck met shoulder.

_He's a vampire. He's going to bite me_ , thought Violet dazedly. The whole thing had an unreal, confused quality to it.

A surprisingly gentle hand slipped onto that triangle of skin, and squeezed lightly. Instantly, Violet's vision went dark, and all she knew as she descended into unconsciousness that this was not good, not good at all.


	3. III

There was darkness behind Violet's eyelids, and this was frankly something of a relief. Currently, a headache was washing out her skull with hydrochloric acid and it occupied all of her immediate future like a large grey lightning-filled balloon.

She ventured forth a groan, and when it relieved her feelings a little she tried again, and this time made it more heartfelt. The headache subsided very slightly. Now Violet was aware of a surface beneath her body; it wasn't something easily identifiable. It was just a surface.

More feeling returned. Violet now realised she was lying on her back with her head tipped to one side. She started to sit up, but lay down again with another groan. Her headache decided of its own volition that Violet was not going to disturb it again and settled down once more. It sat in her head like a curled-up cat, purring out agony throughout her skull.

Violet at least ventured to open her eyes.

Dull grey walls met her eyes, as she blinked the blurriness from them. The headache settled down a little further: this dullness of colour was not offending it. Violet eventually concluded that she was lying on the floor of some unknown room.

Violet actually managed to sit up without too many flares of pain, and surveyed her surroundings properly. Five dull grey walls, and just for the variety, one dull grey wall with a dull grey door with a dull grey ventilation shaft. The monotonous colour appeared to stem from the fact that it was unpolished metal, as opposed to stone.

Violet winced, and tenderly touched the back of her head. Most of yesterday was just a blur, but judging from the lump on the back of her skull, she was lucky to remember _who_ she was, let alone how she got here.

There was the sound of tramping feet outside the door. Violet didn't look up, but gingerly explored the knock on the back of her head. It was quite large, but there was thankfully no blood. The stone that got her musn't have had an edge. Just as well, really.

A few people entered her 'cell', but Violet didn't look up. She sat demurely on the floor, legs curled up under her. Only someone who was really looking at her would have noticed that her stare on the floor was a little too unwavering, a little to solid for it to be mere disregard.

The door clanged shut again, and there was silence, but the visitors made no move.

"Violet Parr."

It sounded derogatory. Violet made no response.

"Violet Parr, sister to Dashall Parr, daughter to Helen and Robert Parr."

Still, Violet acted like she had heard nothing.

"Look at me."

The voice was low, menacing, and carried threat. Violet shut her eyes.

"I said, _look at me_."

Violet turned her head slightly against the wall. Bone instinct told her that the man addressing her was head of the whole operation. It had 'boss' harmonics in every syllable. It was used to having orders obeyed.

There was a pause, and the sound of automatic weapons having the safety catches knocked off. Violet opened and rolled her eyes without quite looking at the intruders.

"Okay, okay. I'm up." There was nothing like the sound of a prepared gun to drive anyone to sudden, calculated obedience.

Violet started to get to her feet. The pain in her head and the slight queasiness in her stomach told her it was a move she would regret later, but she did not want to face this nemesis in a heap on the ground.

Wincing slightly as she stood, Violet very slowly brought her face up to that of her captor.

She looked for a long time.

Then she said, "Er... hi."

Part of Violet's brain had frozen up completely, and the part that was still active kicked her sharply. She had done what she'd always done when thunderstruck: she had reverted to politeness and logic. She could become annoyingly reasonable when provoked.

Syndrome raised an eyebrow.

"So, you remember me..."

Within the last few years Syndrome had undergone some intense physical changes. His hair was cut shorter; it told Violet he'd lost some of his arrogance. His face was harder, more lined: the last five or so years had been a bitter struggle, and had aged him considerably. His eyes, once so blue and round, were narrower, darker, and surrounded by the familiar black mask. And, perhaps most obviously, there was a light, silvery scar that started on his left temple, neatly avoided his left eye, wound its way toward his ear then cut sharply down his neck.

His old costume was gone; _thank God,_ thought Violet distractedly. Instead, he wore a new one: what looked like black army boots, black pants and a black top. His arms, folded across his chest, revealed that he hadn't forsaken his wrist controls - they were there stark in white. And he sounded different: colder, harsher, soaked through with a casual vitriol that marked his mercilessness. That was why she hadn't recognised his voice at first, she realised; he used to be less careful. He used to throw away his words.

He'd also lost some weight: these years had been hard for him. Very hard. But he'd clawed his way back on top again. This time he had a reputation to struggle against.

But not all of him was gone. There was a smug spark in his pale blue eyes and his mouth was twitching upwards a little in the corners - the faintest ghost of a narcissistic grin. Violet couldn't blame him. He'd got his worst enemy's daughter standing in _his_ prison cell, with guns aimed at her, and where he called the shots. She could hear his thoughts now: _Oh-ho-ho, this is going to be_ fun...

Violet decided to voice the question that followed the analysis.

"Are you still Syndrome or are you someone different now?"

Violet realised she had phrased the question around his new appearance, but Syndrome's face did not appear to register this fact. Perhaps, for him, he looked no different.

Syndrome grinned, though it was nothing like his old one. This had cruelty behind it. "No, I'm still the bad old Syndrome you grew to hate."

Violet stared a bit more. She thought she could feel herself growing faint, and fought back immediately.

"I suppose you're wondering why you're here."

"Not really."

This appeared to stop Syndrome, and a spasm of irritation flickered over his face, momentarily usurping his slightly egotistical grin.

"You're here because I want revenge."

"Thought so."

Again, this did not appear to conform to Syndrome's internal script, and he scowled. "Are you going to be like this all the time?" he demanded, some of his old impetuousness showing through his new, slightly more somber exterior _. Some things never change._

Violet couldn't resist flashing him a quick grin through the clouds of shock, horror and sheer dumbstruck-edness. "Like what, pray tell?" She couldn't quite tell which part of her was speaking; presumably, it was the bit which wasn't fazed by this sudden appearance. But it was a very small part, near her knee. The rest of her body had frozen up: her muscles refused to respond. Violet began to get a gnawing feeling of unreality.

Syndrome appeared to get a grip on himself.

"I'm here to take revenge, but not on you. I have no... immediate quarrel with you, although some of my guards do. Even though last time you _completely_ screwed up my _modus operandi_ , you could say."

Amazingly, that unshocked part of Violet was slowly starting to spread through her brain, as did the feeling of unreality. It seemed to say: _You're in a situation of extreme weirdness and I know you can't handle that, so I'll take over temporarily and you can have a nervous breakdown later. Agreed?_

"Now... as I have this aforementioned grudge..." He was walking backwards and forwards in the room, still as physically expressive as he ever was, "I would kind of like to carry out for your father what I have in mind." He clapped his hands together and swiveled on his feet to face her. "Now, I have absolutely no idea where your family is currently residing, but that is a position of ignorance I wish to amend."

Violet followed Syndrome carefully with her eyes. He still liked his hand gestures and was as articulate as ever with his body language. His speech, however, was calmer, and more eloquent, something she's noticed pretty much immediately. He knew more, now. Violet listened intently to what he had to say. She got the feeling that she would not like where it was going... not in the slightest. At the mention of her family, the hairs on the base of her skull stood up sharply, causing an icy, tingling sensation on her brain.

Syndrome was watching her expression carefully, Violet noted, but she had been careful to keep it deadpan. She'd learned a few tricks of the trade in her last few years as a super.

Syndrome appeared to give up psychoanalysing Violet as a bad job, and continued with his speech.

"Now, _I_ know that _you_ know where your family currently lives, and that is information I wish to have from you. I'm going to ask you this once, only once... or at least only once _civilly_. Now: Where - Is - Your - Father?" Syndrome appeared to think for a moment. "I don't intend to harm the rest of your family."

Violet took a moment, meeting Syndrome's pale blue eyes with her own in a firm and unbroken gaze that said, quite clearly: You're insane. You may not be wearing your underwear on your head (yet), but you are quite clearly a mile over the insanity horizon and accelerating.

"They're at Disneyland," she said at last. Syndrome raised an eyebrow.

"You're lying, _Incredigirl_."

"So are you, _Syndrome_."

Syndrome nodded to himself.

"That's as it may be. Know that everything that happened from this point onwards is nobody's fault but your own. Do you understand me?"

Violet would not be drawn into this verbal contract, and made no move.

Syndrome got the picture. His face darkened slightly in anger, and that darkly cheerful egotism was replaced by something far more poisonous.

"You have a choice - you can come quickly or they can drag you kicking and screaming. Choose."

Violet looked at him in disbelief. _One shield, problem solved…_

She sighed. "Kicking and screaming, please."

Syndrome grinned, interpreting her thoughts, and held up a finger.

"One moment, little 'super'. Have you thought this through?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"You do not honestly think I would design a base that would allow supers to retain their abilities, did you?"

Icy fear shot a bullet path from Violet's brain to her toes. Syndrome continued.

"I've spent the last half-decade studying supers as closely as possible - capturing a couple more helped my studies intensely." _Still not given up your favourite sport then, Syndrome?_ "My research has proven that supers rely on a little bit of subconscious concentration to kick their powers into motion. Now, I have used that information to have every single one of my walls charged electrically. The charge is so small you can't feel it, but the frequency _juuust_ disrupts that little bit of inner concentration. I think you'll find it very hard to construct and maintain shields."

 _So as long as I'm not in contact with a wall I'll be all right,_ thought Violet carefully. Syndrome, however, ultimately knew what she was thinking.

"...and the advantage of this little current is that it affects the air that touches it. Basically, my _entire base_ is super-proof."

Violet froze completely. Trapped. She was completely _trapped_.

She tried to summon a shield the size of a tennis ball in the palm of her hand, but there was some kind of... mental block. She couldn't do it; it hurt her head too much.

Whilst Violet was still reeling from this, Syndrome motioned towards her with her hand, and his two bodyguards moved forward with deadly purpose.

The preternatural senses that everyone had told Violet that they were moving too fast for her to bring up a shield in time ( _if_ , her mind cautioned her, _you could anyway_ ), so she swung out with her fist instead.

_I'm going to fight, now and forever because if I comply once they'll make it all the more harder for me to refuse to comply next time._

She copped one of them on the jaw pretty well but the other brought the butt of his rifle into a painful explosive contact with her back. She collapsed, drowning in darkness.

She couldn't have been swimming in the big black sea of unconsciousness for more than a few seconds, because when she came to she realised the guards had a hold of one arm each and they were dragging her along a corridor. She just had time to see the door to her cell closing before she rounded a corner.

 _Where's that book I was reading?_ she thought dozily, brain not quite up to speed. Her skull had taken quite a bashing these last few hours and she wondered idly if she would be suffering from any long-term brain damage. It would certainly explain a lot.

Abruptly, just as some polysyllabic brain functions were beginning to work their way back into her thinking, she was dragged around a corner and into a brand new room.

It was gunmetal grey. The large industrial lamps emitted a bluish white light. There were hardly any shadows. Violet could understand that. The people who worked in a kind of room like this needed to be able to see what they were doing.

Violet tried to move her arms but the result was that the guards tightened their grip. She couldn't actually _feel_ her arms any more, so this was unnoticeable.

The guards dumped her on the floor of the room somewhat unceremoniously. Startled tingling shot through Violet's arms as the circulation re-established itself. She sat up and rubbed them a little, and gave this new room a good look.

Largish, squarish, and... _businesslike_. There were shackles on the wall, shackles on the floor, and shackles on various table-like objects. There were pointy things, stubby things and some which looked downright ridiculous... though Violet was in no laughing mood.

And against the wall, perhaps the most ominously, was a small door. It had no obvious locks, but it emanated a sense of dark, dormant malevolence.

Violet clambered to her feet with a surprising ease. The presence of such dangerous-looking items had given her a fresh boost of adrenaline.

Syndrome had his hands clasped behind his back and was looking at her with an air of self-imposed smugness. Seeing this, Violet decided to get her brain back into gear, declare this situation Defcom 4 and start an all-out nuclear war on it.

Her eyes glanced to the door. It was shut, there were no obvious locks on it, but it looked unopenable from the inside. Brain moving slightly faster now she wasn't paralysed with fear, she evaluated her chances of getting the hell out.

Syndrome motioned toward Violet with his fingers. Once more, the two guards began to walk purposefully towards her.

Violet took a step backwards and pressed her back into the wall. Her headache came back with a vicious thunderclap, assuming every photon of her attention. Violet realised it was occupying too much of her mental RAM for her to summon a shield, even if she could.

_Nothing. Dammit. Let's go to plan B..._

Violet swept out the feet of the guard nearest to her with a floor-level kick. She jumped and landed on the guard's stomach. He made a sort of 'ounf' noise but Violet was away from him, rolling, and smacking the second guard as hard as possible across the face with her foot.

He collapsed, dropping his gun as he did so. Violet rolled again, picked it up, and was on her feet within seconds. Her finger squeezed the trigger and there was a bullet in each of the men's kneecaps. Their screams of agony sliced through the air like a shard of broken mirror. Violet wound up with having the gun pointed, quite firmly, at Syndrome, but she was too late. A nastily familiar aura of blue had surrounded her, and she was once more trapped in zero-point energy.

Syndrome tapped a button on one of his wrist controls, never taking his eyes from Violet.

"Guard of six, interrogation unit seven. Immediately. Oh, and two stretchers."

He appeared to shorten to beam of energy until she was closer to him. Reaching into the forcefield, he plucked the gun from her frozen hands and threw it behind him. It discharged once, with a loud report, and lay uselessly on the floor.

Syndrome began to laugh. "And to think I thought you would just _submit_! You _have_ changed these last few years, haven't you? Learned how to fight, I see, but, in the end, it really isn't going to make much difference."

Syndrome stated this last sentence with an uncaring shrug of his shoulders, and this scared Violet more than anything else. This man truly did not care what he did to her, in order to get the information that he wanted.

Turning abruptly, he let go of the zero-point energy and Violet smashed ungracefully to a wall, with a sharp crack. Violet groaned softly as her right ribcage filled with bright pain, and all she could think was _my God was that what I think it was?_ Numbly, she noted the spreading flower of red stain her vest top, and that thought filled her mind again: _my God is that what I think it is?_

Eight men entered the room and Violet viewed them all through a thin grey gauze of metallic pain. She tried not to pay attention to them, and she succeeded, to an extent.

Violet very quietly laid her head on the floor and, with the calmness and tranquility of a child, dropped away from the world.


	4. IV

When Violet awoke she realised that she was still in the torture room, and chained quite firmly to something. The weight of the metal on her wrists was enough to tell her this.

Without opening her eyes, Violet surveyed her internal damage: Bumps, bruises, and one infallibly cracked rib. That was _really_ going to hurt later. She opened her eyes and blinked twice.

"About time," said someone. Violet sighed in annoyance, and sat up. This was immediately accompanied by a rusty scream of defiance from her ribcage. Violet made to ignore it.

Rubbing her forehead tiredly, she noted that she had about a two feet of slack on each wrist. She glared at Syndrome, who was stood a little way from the 'table' she was sitting on. She took the opportunity to glance quickly around the room. Two guards stood on the door, and one behind a control panel. Violet didn't like it. It smacked of an interrogation - or torture - session. She turned back to Syndrome.

"Yes?"

This appeared to momentarily throw him off track, but his flicker of uncertainty was gone almost as soon as it was there. Violet smirked. (The part of her that would have had her gibbering in the corner of the room had been gaffer-taped by her common sense. The fight/flight instinct would not help here.)

Syndrome sensed her mirth and was instantly angry. He approached the table where she was sitting, face pale and serious with rage. His eyes darkened maliciously.

"Have no illusions. _I_ am in charge. Do not forget it." His voice was a deadly, dangerous whisper that slithered down Violet's spine and pressed an ancient button marked 'Primal Terror'. The result was a hot lava bloom of fear in the pit of her stomach, but she willed it not to show on her face. Panic curled through her intestines and the hair on the nape of her neck stood up, but Violet concentrated instead on that milky blue stare.

She allowed her gaze to slip rather pointedly to the scar on his neck, and back to his eyes. She raised an eyebrow, and Syndrome grinned rather mirthlessly.

"I suppose you're wondering how I survived."

Violet said nothing. Her silence was as good as an answer. Syndrome turned so his back was to her and paced a little bit.

"Your father threw a car at my plane, and the result knocked me into the jet engine. It grabbed my cape and had almost pulled me into it when the plane exploded." He appeared to be unconsciously tracing the scar with one finger. "I was thrown away from it amidst the shrapnel, and when you are surrounded by flying pieces of razor-sharp metal it is bound to leave a mark somewhere."

Violet hoped it had hurt like hell.

"Then there were some other things, like undiscovered bases and unseized international accounts. The rest, I believe, is history. But, now for my question: what are _you_ doing, hitchhiking through the Caribbean?"

Violet's silence deepened. Syndrome growled a command to his henchman, and a snake of pain wound up through Violet's left wrist. She immediately flinched, pulling taught the chain on her hand, and promptly antagonising her chest. Its purpose was obviously more than restraint.

"I will ask once more," said Syndrome quietly. "What are you doing in the middle of the Caribbean... all on your own. Or are you?"

Violet stayed mutinously mum. Syndrome's fingers twitched. Another bolt of pain, up her left arm again, and this was more than an uncomfortable twinge.

"That was level two," said Syndrome dangerously, face dark. "There are four hundred and thirty-two levels in total. Would you like to try them out?"

"I was hitchhiking."

"Why?"

"Gap year."

"Before what? College?"

"I've finished college. I'm twenty, you idiot."

A jolt of lightning consumed her entire arm, and this was real pain, with real bite; Violet had to stifle a gasp between her teeth. She had a sudden mental image of that electricity reaching her heart.

This time, Syndrome hadn't even bothered with a verbal warning. Violet decided that she would be best refraining from any more insults, even though the 'idiot' comment had just slipped out.

"Twenty, huh? You look kinda young for that. Are you telling me the truth?"

Violet did not want more of that electrical discharge, so she pleaded her case. "Five years ago, when I first fought you, I was fifteen. Now I'm twenty. I'm on my gap year before I get a job, or study for a degree. I'm hitchhiking on my own, under my own power." That seemed to cover all of the essential points.

"Why were you on this island? Were you looking for me?"

"Don't flatter yourself. I was going to Barbados, and the cheapest flight out meant catching a boat from this island. I just wanted to complete my trek."

Violet hadn't broken that foggy-blue stare. She would not be the one to terminate the eye contact, to display that sign of weakness. Her arm still throbbed with memories of pain but she ignored it, even when the pins and needles started.

There was a slight pause, and Violet saw that Syndrome was regarding her with a slightly sinister expression.

"When did you start this... trek?"

Alarm bells began shrieking their warning. _If I tell him when, he can check all incoming flights to see where I flew from._ Violet had taken a flight that was literally next door from her hometown.

"I forget."

And this time it felt like her muscles were trying to rip her bones apart, like they had betrayed her and were screaming out their protests. Violet gasped through her teeth, jaw clenched, eyes shut tight. A bead of perspiration made its way past her eye.

"You have a wonderfully selective memory."

"Listen: I've had a rock to the head and a gun butt to the kidneys. I am dealing with a lump on my skull the size of Missouri and, probably, mild concussion. I've been unconscious twice in fewer days. I've had no food and little sleep. Tell me: what state should my memory be in?"

And now both her arms felt like slivers of red hot glass, millions of them, were probing her muscles, melting into the tissue and forming cables of sheer, unadulterated agony that pulled taught and twanged; like tendrils of white-hot pain were sliding their dancing fingers up through her neck and across her shoulders. Violet gritted her teeth hard _(I will not scream I will not scream)_ and clenched her eyes, momentarily blotting out her view of Syndrome through this exquisite swirl of red/black agony behind her eyelids. Her back pressed up hard against the wall and her head bowed forward as every muscle in her body was pulled taught. Her heart beat madly for a moment. And then it was over.

Violet slumped a little, and found herself (to some mild surprise) to be panting slightly. Her heart was still thumping a little too fast for her liking, but at least her muscles weren't trying to tie themselves in knots, and her bones retained the approximate shape they were supposed to have.

"Want some more?" asked Syndrome softly.

Violet considered saying something like 'Bring it on' but she knew that it would probably end in her fainting, and she would not give Syndrome that pleasure. The lump on the back of her skull was throbbing again, and her headache was pouring back into her frontal lobes like some sort of gleeful, heavy liquid... possibly mercury.

Violet was surprised at the anger she had conjured from Syndrome; he had been cool and calm up to this point. What had she said to affect him?

_Maybe it's not what I said... maybe it's the way I said it. He doesn't stand for anyone being rude to him, not any more._

She had no time to wonder about the situation she was in; no time to be shocked by anything (in both the literal and figurative sense.). She could panic later. Right now, she was in serious, serious danger/pain and she didn't have the energy to stand up for herself. Any kind of plan she had been formulating was caught amidst this swirling, cloudy headache, decimating her concentration. She was dimly aware that she was shaking slightly. The electricity seemed to have done something to her nervous system. Slowly, it began to subside.

She had been silent for too long. Syndrome approached her, slowly, maliciously, taking his time, enjoying her pain.

"Where are they, little girl?"

Silence.

"Tell me, and _maybe_ I won't kill you, come the end."

Violet said the first thing that came to mind; a phrase, dating back to her mid-teens. A favourite of hers when it came to difficult homework.

"Why bother, we're all going to die anyway."

She fused that old note of boredom-come-despondancy into it perfectly. Syndrome seemed to have stopped short, staring at her with an incredulous expression on his once-childish, now-hardened face.

He began to laugh.

This was _not_ what Violet had been expecting, and it was her turn to look bewildered now.

And, just like that, the Syndrome she remembered from all those years ago was back, and laughing like mad - his attitude boyish, his body language immature, his words of youthful naivety.

"Oh, boy! _Right_ when I'm not expecting it! Man, you crack me _up_! How random can you _get_?" His laughter tapered off, and Violet saw with unease how he seemed to be... well, _young_ again.

Disappointment unfurled in her chest. She thought that maybe this new Syndrome would be more mature; that maybe, under the fear, she could respect him as a truly powerful villain who'd earned the prefix 'super' through his hard efforts. That maybe he was the supervillain he'd aspired to be. But perhaps the reason she felt so embittered was that because she'd been caught _again_ by this pompous little asshole, and her disappointment in herself was overriding her common-sense circuit. However, it didn't make her point any less valid...

Discontent laced her eyes, and when she spoke, it was bitter.

"So that's _it_? I'm _funny_?"

Syndrome stopped laughing altogether, and gave her a lightly puzzled look. Again, this was old Syndrome to the core; the new person had seemed so much more emotionally controlled.

"You know what? I kind of respected the new you. You were more serious. I was calling you _supervillain_ in my head. Now look at you. A _kid_ again."

Ouch - she saw that one go home. The 'super' comment must have still been a sore spot _(as sore as my ribs?)_ because now his eyes were literally darkening with the kind of suppressed anger you saw in a reasonably calm person, right up to the point where they hauled off and smashed someone in the face with a spanner.

"I don't quite think you learned your last lesson," he said quietly, dangerously ...seriously. Violet tensed, but nothing could have prepared her for it anyway.

Molten white shot through her arms, her bones, her muscles. It wound a little up the curves of her neck but positively _raced_ down her shoulders and embedded itself into her spine. The pain was a living, breathing creature, pulsing waves of agony through her, obliterating all of her other senses. It spread its wings through her ribcage and pulled her muscles taught -

It stopped instantly. Violet slumped properly, glaring at Syndrome steadfastly as he checked a reading over one of his soldier's shoulders. His eyebrows went up.

"Level five already... that's about one percent of total power, give or take. No one's survived beyond four percent before... It'll be interesting to see how long you last."

Syndrome made eye contact, once. The he nodded at a guard.

"Take her back to her cell. If she struggles, shoot her in the... oh, I don't know. In the elbow, perhaps?"

The shackles around Violet's wrists were released. Violet had just enough time to note angry red electrical burns braceletting her hands before she was dragged up and pushed in the general direction of the door. Violet went.

-

Violet sat in the corner of the cell, in pain.

Occasionally, her ribs sent out a brief spasm of misery to let her know that yes, they were there, and no, they weren't happy about it.

 _You and me both_ , she thought grimly. Her headache wasn't helping any, either. Gingerly, she touched the red stain on her vest top; it was dry and tacky with blood.

Well, at least it was dark in the cell; her headache had that much to thank her for. There didn't appear to be any readily apparent light sources, although there had to be one somewhere.

Violet was drifting through a thin gauze of exhaustion and hunger. A faintly nauseated sensation snored in the pit of her stomach but Violet knew it was just low blood sugar.

Slowly, quietly, with no fuss and wondering if she would live to see the next day, she lay down, shut her eyes and drifted away into a black, cloudy void.

-

She awoke, because it is hard to sleep when someone is kicking you in the back.

Violet hissed in pain and curled into a tight ball around her chest. Her ribs smarted uniformly. A sheen of sweat broke out on her forehead as her breath came in hitching gasps. But she did not scream, or worse, cry.

"Something broken?" asked Syndrome's voice. It didn't sound like he cared, in particular.

Violet brought her hand away from where it had been very, very gently cradling her chest. She looked at the raw red liquid staining her fingers and her palm, and put it back again with a grimace. The wound had been disturbed; the crust had broken. Ew.

Violet tried to smile at her own inner childish immaturity, but the pain in her chest would not allow it. A thin white mist passed in front of her vision and she swore she could feel it filling her lungs, like mercury. She willed it away fiercely; it would not do to faint.

Her hearing began to flicker and lightheadedness engulfed her. Violet knew that consciousness wouldn't stay home for long; in fact, it felt as if it were planning to go on an all-night bender.

Her muscles became looser as her vision darkened slightly, and Violet caught snatches of conversation.

"... kill her?"

"Most likely, so..."

"... medical attention..."

"...yes. Now."

Footsteps sounded near to her, and Violet raised her head slightly, trying to see who it was. It was Syndrome, and he was glaring at her rather smugly.

A sudden coughing spasm racked Violet, aggravating her ribs. She raised the back of her free hand to her mouth, and brought it away to see blood.

_Oh. Great._

She felt like she was drifting, falling lightly. A black airless void was coming towards her and Violet didn't fight it. If this was death, then she really didn't care any more.

-

Violet's return to the land of the awake and breathing was a slow one.

She was vaguely aware of herself. She felt like there was a great, heavy weight on her chest, crushing her, suffocating her. She tried to fight it but she could not move. She was dead, she was asleep, she was paralysed.

There was nothing but a black void around her and her mind floated through it, lost. There was time, not so long ago, when great gusts of air invaded her body, forcing her chest up and down, and she had disliked it so much she had started to do it on her own, just to avoid that breath raping her lungs.

She heard voices... dim, almost silent, whispery... like the secrets of ghosts. She tried to listen to them but they were there and then they weren't... like voices behind her. They were always behind her.

She became dimly aware of the pain, of the way it ebbed and flowed. She couldn't quite identify it, or where it came from, but she was vaguely aware of it, all the same. It grew slowly more acute.

She felt like she was rising, slowly through a great ocean of liquid, like a corpse in a pond. There was light. She drifted towards it.

Her eyes flickered open once, twice. There was a medium-strength lamp right above her.

Violet breathed in deeply, and let it out again. Memories began to trickle in again, and Violet was pleasantly aware of the fact that there was very little pain.

Suddenly, a face leaned over, blocking the light out. The part of Violet that was still distantly mulling things over recognised it immediately as Syndrome, and she made the appropriate response.

"I died and went to hell."

The corner of Syndrome's mouth quirked up in a momentary grin.

"Awake?"

"Demonstrably."

Violet sat up, expecting grief from her headache, but none came. Violet immediately made the connection with the light-headed feeling.

"What painkillers did you give me?"

"Pethidin. Intravenously. It was either that, or have you wake up and die of delayed shock, and I'm not letting you kill yourself. That's _my_ job. I nearly managed it, too... you went into respiratory depression a little while ago."

Violet looked at Syndrome, mouth a bitter line. Unbidden, the words rose to her mouth.

"What more can you do to me?"

Syndrome grinned, and examined the tips of his fingers.

"You know what? You would be very, very surprised."

Violet glanced around the room she was in. It was large, square, white, and now completely empty - ah, yes, except for two guards on the door. Violet eyed their automatic weapons with a sigh, and tuned her attention back to Syndrome.

She touched a hand to her ribs, and waited for a flash of pain. All she got was a twinge of complaint.

"Oh, we had to put a metal bolt through the bone, to hold them together," said Syndrome carelessly, gesturing with his hands. "It should be a bit painful once the pethidin wears off."

Violet sat up a little more, swinging her legs over the edge of the tabley thing she was sitting on. Pushing herself forwards with the palms of her hands, she gingerly stood up.

She took a few steps forward, deliberately making sure she was just close enough to Syndrome to make him uncomfortable. Now she was barely six inches from her nemesis. He was somewhat taller than she, and Violet looked him square in the eye.

She forced a quick grin. His expression was classic as she punched him, hard.

It was sweet. It was textbook. Syndrome flew backwards and crashed onto his back. Violet glared at him, trying to shake some feeling back into her fingers.

An automatic rifle suddenly occupied most of her attention. The small black hole at the tip was centered firmly at her forehead. Amidst this brand new event, Syndrome had picked himself up off the floor. Violet's punch hadn't appeared to have left much in the way of a bruise, which Violet felt somewhat annoyed about.

"Take her to the interrogation unit," said Syndrome very clearly. He turned, and had almost exited the room when he paused, and said: "Make sure she suffers." With that, he was gone.

-

It had been a while, and pain had happened.

Violet lay, curled into the foetal position, in the corner of a cell. She shivered incessantly, but not because it was cold. Her nerves had been wound so tight they were on the breaking point, and they wouldn't rest. So Violet lay, shaking and in pain.

Syndrome had indeed become more adept at torture, although he now entrusted it to his minions. Some of his inventions were really quite... inventive, to say the least. They all hurt more than she thought possible, and none left a mark.

She was thirsty; oh, she was thirsty. Her throat was raw from all the suppressed screams. Her body felt too light, and too cold.

Their question, echoes through her skull: _Where is you father? Where is Mr. Incredible?_

And it was so, so terrible, because she knew that she held the key to stop this pain, whether for rest or death. And she had to clench her jaws to stop screaming out a random city because she knew that it was in Syndrome's best interests to storm that city ands kill lots of people, to bring her family-who-didn't-actually-live-there out of hiding. And they would not come, and people would die, and the cycle would start all over again.

The door to her cell hissed open, and shut again. Slow, languorous footsteps approached her. She knew it was Syndrome.

Barely moving, and yet fighting to draw breath, she unfolded one hand and gave him the finger.

He laughed for a moment. "Still fighting? I thought my workers could have taken that out from you, at least for a while. I _will_ have to have a word with them... it seems they're not working hard enough."

Violet made no reply. Instead, she brought her hand back to her body and curled up tighter. Her heart was hammering disconcertingly fast from the backwash of adrenaline and someone was playing Mozart on her nerves.

She brought herself to a sitting position with a show of reasonable steadiness. She was immediately confronted by Syndrome's smug grin. She considered standing up but her legs sent a telegraph to her brain with a crisp clear 'NO'. The shivering had not died down, and it made her angry.

Violet broke the silence with a frank statement, using as much of the air in her lungs as her body would provide.

"I see you trashed the old costume."

"It didn't pay to advertise."

"Thank God. You looked a pretentious little twerp in it, you know."

Syndrome raised an eyebrow. "A precarious statement from one in your position."

Violet moved strand of hair out her eyes with a shaking hand and glared at him darkly.

"Or you'll do what? Torture me?" She paused and added, "Again?"

"Of course."

"Whereas I can be as nice as you want me to be and get tortured anyway."

"Your perspective never ceases to amaze me. However. I'll get straight to the point."

Syndrome strolled backwards and forwards, hands clasped behind his back. "You know, it would be so much simpler if you, _I_ don't know, just told me what I wanted to know."

"Yes."

"Where is your father currently residing?"

"Jupiter."

"Not the answer I was looking for. _AAA_ nyway..." Syndrome swiveled on his feet to face her, his serious expression layered over with a thin, somewhat nasty, smile. Something in Violet shriveled up at the sight. She knew that what would come next would not be nice. Adrenaline spiked her bloodstream. Again.

"You appear very... _resilient_ to my methods of interrogation."

He was walking backwards and forwards again. Slowly, leisurely. Violet's shaking had calmed but every muscle tensed, making her limbs ache. A swift flick of her fingers moved a few strands of hair from her face.

"... and so, I thought to myself, what is the best way to get information from an unwilling victim?"

Syndrome was leaning over her now, smirking. The thought that Syndrome had not actually gone all-out to retrieve the information he wanted caused her pulse to quicken. _What methods does he have left?_

Syndrome appeared to sense her fear, because his grin widened a little.

"It's a tried-and-tested method of breaking someone, and I haven't seen it fail yet."

Violet was breathing shallowly, but not quite panting. Syndrome tapped something on one of his wrist controls, and two guards entered the room. They leveled their weapons at her, and, getting the message, Violet rose unsteadily to her feet.

"Interrogation unit."

Violet tried a few steps forwards, and when her legs failed to collapse under her, she moved more confidently toward the door. Violet knew without being told that the guns of the two guards behind her were trained resolutely upon her back... and that they would not hesitate to shoot. Maybe not to kill, but most definitely to wound. She decided that, this once, she would go quietly.

-

"It's called the White Room... but I like to refer to it as room 101."

She was back in the torture room, and Violet followed Syndrome's pointing finger to the door she had first seen when brought into this hellhole of a torture chamber. It had not lost any of its portentous quality, and Violet wondered what on earth would be in there. "Very Orwellian," she murmured.

An escort of four guards was stood a little way off. Their guns were pointed at the floor but Violet knew the safety catches would be off. And out of the corner of her eye, she saw Syndrome nod almost imperceptibly.

Suddenly, the four guards were a lot closer. Violet heard the whisper of their feet across the floor and knew that, beside the two standing standing guard by her shoulders, the other two were attentively alert by her shoulderblades. Judging by her own sense of personal space, they were close enough for her to feel their breath on the back of her neck - and close enough to make her extremely uncomfortable. She had a sudden feeling of claustrophobia, and fear raced through her limbs. Suddenly, a scary situation had become a hell of a lot more ominous.

Syndrome turned to face her, and as she saw the hypodermic syringe in his hand, her eyes widened.

Involuntarily, Violet took a few steps backwards. It was as if her spine had promptly decided it wanted to be further away from the man with the needle, and had sort of dragged her body back with it. The guards had been expecting this, and all at once hands closed on her arms.

_Oh sweet Jesus no anything but needles -_

Panic, true panic, began to kick, and so did Violet. She struggled desperately but the grips on her arms tightened. Her attempts at freedom were wild now as sheer animal terror shot through her system, overriding any attempts at logical thought. All she knew was that she wanted to get away from the needle - her one, and only, pet phobia.

One wild wrench and she had shaken off two of the guards, but suddenly there were more guards grabbing at her, pulling her down to the floor. There were probably about six guards fighting to keep her still now, gripping her arms, her wrists, her waist, her legs. But Violet would not give up.

She lay, crushed on her side, as the guards tried desperately to still her fierce struggling. Slowly, her fighting slowed a little, knowing full well she was trapped and damn near useless.

There was also a hand over her mouth now, although she hadn't been screaming. Her chest rose and fell, trying to get enough air to feed her hungry muscles.

A guard shifted to one side to make room for someone, whilst maintaining the force of his weight thrown across her waist, crushing the side of her pelvis into the floor. Violet was completely immobile.

"Turn her over, please," asked Syndrome pleasantly, and she was turned onto her back (somewhat difficult for the guards) as he moved into Violet's line of sight.

He came a little closer, and Violet saw he had a bottle of clear liquid with him. Her eyes refused to look away as Syndrome casually unscrewed the top, inserted the tip of the needle and drew the whole lot into the syringe with what appeared to be deliberate slowness.

He slipped the bottle into a pocket and tapped the top of the plastic tube a few times, to get rid of any air bubbles. He had the air of a professional at work.

He turned to her, and his eyebrows went up.

"I didn't think your reaction would be _this_ violent," he said mildly, and suddenly his mouth turned up at a corner. "Oh _dear_ , oh _dear_... I haven't discovered a little _phobia_ of yours, have I?" Syndrome smirked, and moved around her so that he was standing next to her head.

He got down on one knee which, in different circumstances, might have been funny. Violet was in no laughing mood. Because he was directly above her, albeit ninety degrees to her left, she got a front-row seat to see the needle getting closer. She immediately tried to pull away from it, but she was held down too tightly. Someone had their arm around her shoulders and across her collarbones (and their other hand over her mouth), and their grip tightened. There was one guard for each of her arms, one for each of her legs, and some enterprising soldier had thrown his weight across her waist, making it impossible for her to move.

"Delivery to the neck," stated Syndrome coolly, and the person in charge of her shoulders moved over to make room for Syndrome. He moved over slightly, so that he was sitting just to the left of Violet's head.

The grip on Violet's neck loosened for a second, just a second; then it was replaced by what felt like a steel bar. Violet's eyes, darting to side, noted that it was the pressure of Syndrome's hand on her collarbone. He had tipped her head to the left, and she could literally _feel_ his gaze as he leaned over, scanning her neck, looking for the ideal artery. Violet risked a glance up; he seemed preoccupied and utterly, utterly professional.

He, however, also appeared to feel _her_ gaze, and his eyes flashed down for a second to meet hers. She knew instantly that he was quietly enjoying this absolute control.

His gloved hand moved a little further up her neck to rest on that stretch of muscle below her ear, and his thumb indented her flesh slightly. He brought the needle nearer.

"Last chance, _Incredigirl_ ," he said, mockingly. "Do you have anything you want to tell me?"

Violet took in one deep, shuddery breath, and kept her silence. This was it. This was the point of no return. She shut her eyes, and knew that what was coming was unstoppable. She twisted her head and buried it in the ribs of her worst enemy, and waited for the proverbial axe to fall.

If Syndrome's surprise was there, it was momentary, because she felt the sting of the needle as it penetrated her exposed skin and stole deeper, deeper, under her collarbone -

Her body's response was exactly the same as the time she received her tuberculosis immunisation in her elbow, at the age of fourteen. But this pain was deeper, the delivery dignified but intimate, and the situation _much_ more terrifying.

Every muscle in her body pulled taught. Her fists clenched and her windpipe blocked up, locking off her lungs and stopping her breathing. Her eyes screwed shut. She tried to breathe and found she couldn't get past the ring of muscle in her throat.

She was intensely aware of the volume of Syndrome's heart _(who'd guess he'd have it in him),_ of his steady breathing. She didn't have much choice in the matter. She was currently hiding her face in his ribs. It provided some comfort. She temporarily put her trust in him to do the job he had come to do, to do it well, _and not to leave her on her own._

The needle was a spike in her chest that breathed cold information down into the core of her system. She could feel it, the liquid trickling through her muscles and blood, spreading out like a flower through her body. Already her fingertips tingled.

The injection lasted about ten seconds; there was a lot of liquid to be delivered. Violet felt it, like cool oxygen moving into her body. Some of her muscles relaxed, but her neck remained as taught as ever. She focused on Syndrome's heartbeat, its measured pace, and it helped to distract from the pain a little. She was glad.

And then, ten seconds after it had started and a million years after it had begun, it was over. Violet felt the needle withdraw from her flesh like a splinter being removed, and with it came with an enormous sense of relief. The worst was over. _Had_ to be.

She felt a tingling sense of complaint when Syndrome drew away from her and stood up. She needed the proximity of another human being, even if it was her most hated foe. She needed that knowledge that she wasn't dead yet.

Eyes open now, she saw all the guards pull themselves to their feet. She lay there, unmoving for a moment, unexpectedly reveling in the relaxed feeling the drug had bestowed upon her. Then someone grabbed her roughly and hauled her up; she stumbled, unwillingly, to be vertical.

She regretted it immediately. Her sense of balance betrayed her; the land around her wavered sickeningly. Everything was off-kilter.

It cleared after a couple of seconds, and Violet was able to stand without the guards holding on to each shoulder. She turned to address Syndrome, and noted the peculiar way her body moved, as if not quite in sync with reality.

"What the hell was that?"

Her speech was okay, though. Syndrome turned from where he'd deposited the needle.

"That? Oh, a little cocktail of chemicals. A very, very, mild sedative -" Violet relaxed slightly, "- and a very, very potent hallucinogen."

Any relief Violet might have had evaporated instantly. She managed a whispered groan. Syndrome smirked.

"Yes, it's proved quite effective. Saps your energy just enough and due to your present situation, should trigger one _hell_ of a bad trip. Now, if you would be so kind..."

Syndrome gestured toward the door set in the wall. Walking on legs that were rapidly beginning to feel like they didn't belong to her, Violet stumbled through the open door.

She heard the clang of it closing behind her, and the low lights flickered on.

It was just a square room with a single bunk. Violet lay down on it. It wasn't the hard table she had been expecting; it had a futon mattress on it. Minimalist, but decent.

Violet waited to see what happened next.


	5. V

In retrospect, she would rather have had a hundred more injections that live through the trauma again.

It took about half an hour for the hallucinogen to settle itself firmly into Violet's brain, but the results were worse than anything she could have ever imagined.

It started suddenly, and with no warning apart from a growing lethargy. All at once, Violet noticed that there was a flashing zebra crossing running the length of the room, parallel to her body. She wondered why she had not seen it before. A multitude of animals began to cross it, all of them a mixture of smudged cartoon colours. She saw a cartoon giraffe cross and that's when the penguins approached her.

It was exactly like having a very high fever, she remembered later on. It had the same lucidly transparent feel to it, the same silence of a sickroom, the same distorted reality.

The hallucinations continued for about fifteen minutes, each of them stranger and less real than the previous, but she was in no state to notice that. Eventually, she fell asleep. And where the hallucinations had felt _partway_ real, the dreams were _all_ real.

_Her family, a circus act on unicycles, wearing frilly red costumes. Violet stood in the ring, calling them, calling them, but they don't come. They don't come._

_Her mother passes near her and she sees that her eyes are glazed, and her arms and legs move as if on automatic pilot. Helen Parr is dead, and Violet knows it._

_No. This is wrong. Violet runs from mother to father to brother; they are all dead. Every one. They are performing; cycling, juggling, maybe dancing. They are all dead._

_Violet's fear penetrates her muscles and she runs, runs from the tent, into a world where mindless walking zombies go about their daily life. No one pays attention to her. Not a word is spoken. Even the wind has died its own unnoticed death._

_She is ignored, but she knows something is watching for her, looking for her, and it wants to turn her into one of these mindless deadmen._

_So she runs._

_Though crowds of the walking dead, through silence like tar._

This dream takes a long time; she runs through the crowds for hours. Looking for a place to hide where this Thing that is chasing her cannot find her.

_And all the time there is an ominous background noise that sometimes grows louder, sometimes grows quieter; a sort of swishing noise, swooshing, like slow sickly waves or like someone trying to say something on a tape that is being played at an eighth of its normal speed. It is not a good sound._

_And then she is running through jungle but because there are no more people that sound is louder now, more groaning, nearer, more dangerous. She feels it like a virus, coming for her. The jungle is empty, the jungle is silent, the jungle is a world waiting to end._

_But she's reached the top of the volcano now, she notes, and there is someone sitting on the tiny, comical cartoon point. It is Syndrome._

_He sits slightly hunched over, staring out across the sea, with his chin propped up on his knuckles: a semi-conscious parody of Auguste Rodin's 'The Thinker'_ _. Around them is a clearing of short grass._

_That sound has gone now. There is just silence, but she runs up to him anyway, scared more._

" _It's coming, the Virus is coming," she says to him. He doesn't even look at her._

" _I'm the only one who's not dead yet," he says matter-of-factly._

" _I know I know come on let's go the Virus is coming." She tugs at him, but he doesn't move._

" _Where to?" he says softly, and looks at her. He is not dead, she knows that. He is not dead, and they are the only ones who aren't. His eyes shine with hideous intelligence... and if the Virus catches them, that intelligence will vanish in a haze of death._

_And the background noise that had disappeared suddenly becomes a roar of attack, and some great, invisible wind blasts across the plateau._

_Syndrome says nothing, and Violet looks into his eyes and sees that he, too, is gone. She is on her own in a world of the dead and the Virus is coming for her now_

A door clangs open. Violet lurches upwards with a shock of terror. The Virus, the Virus, the Virus, is all she remembers.

Hands she can't see in the dim luminescence of the cell grab her suddenly and drag her toward this bright rectangle of light. She is pushed into a world of waiting white, eyes screaming as they're overloaded in this disorientated, stumbling figure. She is aware that she is coated in perspiration; her skin is shiny with it.

Violet squints. This is all too fast, suddenly. Too fast. Voices babble everywhere. She stumbles, moving randomly. She's blind in the white light, waiting for her eyes to adjust, but they can't focus. Something is wrong.

It's like a very old memory, pressed in a book to be savoured on rainy days. Familiar, thank God, no-one's dead. It's not the volcano top. The dull grey room with harsh lighting. A gaggle of grey-uniformed men flit through the room _(people, too many people but thank God they're not dead)_ but she focuses with all her will on the one thing that seems real.

Syndrome is stood there, grinning. He approaches her, resplendent in his egotism, arms folded behind his back. Violet's utter disorientation and confusion doesn't allow her to see any of this, of course; she has to warn him. The Virus is coming, is coming.

She's still in the grip of the hallucinogen, and it's still nested in her mind. The dream is still reality.

Syndrome is standing close to her, lips curled in a sneer.

"Enjoy your trip?"

She takes one lurching step forwards and falls onto him, clinging onto both his shoulders, burying her fingers in the material, pulling her to him, embracing him desperately. She can't hold herself up. She feels him stagger in surprise, but she has to tell him, to warn him.

"I won't let it happen to you," she whispers. "I won't. I won't let it happen to you, Buddy. When the Virus comes North, don't sit on the point of the volcano, you have to run. You have to run. You can't die because of me. I won't let you die. No. I won't let you die."

There's an arm about her shoulders and under her knees now, supporting her. Lifting her off her feet, stopping her struggle to stay vertical and balanced. She feels her job is done, and blackness claws at her mind, dragging it deep into an abyss. And the last thing she remembers before she drowns in this is that there are tears on her face.

-

Violet woke in a comfortable semi-darkness, in the calm quiet which indicated that someone was nearby and not saying anything. She shut her eyes again.

It wasn't Syndrome. She knew that much.

She opened her mouth. Nothing came out. She licked her lips, and tried again.

"Water."

It was barely a whisper, but it was registered. Someone got up momentarily, and there was the sound of water being poured.

A glass was pressed to Violet's bottom lip, and a tiny dribble of water moistened her lips enough for her to open them, and swallow the liquid. It cleared the mugginess in her head a little, but the confusion still remained.

"I need -" she whispered.

"Hush," said a quiet female voice. She felt herself lifted up and carried across the room, through another doorway, where she blearily cracked open an eye. She felt her feet being pressed to the floor, and the door clicking shut again.

Violet used the toilet that was there. She felt a lot better.

Violet opened the door to the bathroom and walked unsteadily back to the bed. She lay down on it, and drifted away again.

-

It could have been days, hours, minutes. Violet's brief interludes of consciousness were punctuated by requests for water. She knew only that her back was held by something reasonably soft, that she was covered in a light sheet. She was warm and dry. She asked for nothing more.

Violet became intensely aware in this time of how many people were in the room.  
Sometimes it just felt fuller.

Sometimes she had bad dreams where she felt something chasing her, but never the Virus dream. She hallucinated a couple of times; showers of stars that fell from the ceiling, ducks that swam across the floor. Her mind was too detached to wonder about the past, the future. Everything was blurred and slightly unreal. Many times she decided not to think about it because it made her head hurt, and she chose to sleep instead.

-

Violet woke to find her head slightly clearer but still quite tired. She wondered what had woken her.

There were too many people in the room. Instead of one, there were two. She dropped below the surface of sleep again. She had not moved or even opened her eyes.

She dimly heard footsteps lead to a door, which opened and closed again. There was only one person in the room, but it was not the same person who had been watching over her previously. This was a new person.

She knew who it was.

It her head had been tipped to the left, facing a wall. She now opened her eyes (slowly, oh so slowly; exhaustion was still a major factor of her life) and lifted her head slightly, moving it around.

Her eyes settled Syndrome. He was sitting alertly in a chair with his arms crossed over his stomach, and his gaze was locked unwaveringly on Violet.

"Welcome back to the world."

Violet made a monosyllabic noise. Speech was a brain function that required entirely too much energy.

"You really are a fascinating little thing, Violet, aren't you?"

She tipped her head away to face the ceiling and let her eyes drift closed.

"Your entire... psychedelic episode lasted about twenty-four hours. When I had you pulled out of the room, you promptly stumble over to me and endeavour to explain how, when the Virus comes North, I should not sit on the point of the volcano, but run."

The Virus rang painful memories, and she subdued them. She succeeded... she felt so far away from herself, and her memories.

"What, pray tell, is 'the Virus'?"

"Kills people." Her words were slurred, devoid of the energy it used to breathe with enough control to form them. Mumbling, because she hadn't the energy to move her jaw.

"And the 'point of the volcano'?"

"You were sitting on the volcano when it got you... everyone else was dead... I tried to make you run... but there was nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide."

Violet turned away from Syndrome, slowly and laboriously. The dream had been horrible. It had been hell. She felt dead.

There was the sounds of a chair being pulled closer, and when Syndrome next spoke, his voice was right by her.

"It would appear that, insofar as bad trips go, you had quite the ride."

Violet said nothing. She felt his voice begin to fall slightly as her meagre focus began to drip away. She was starting to drift again.

"So, little Incredigirl... have you any information you wish to impart? Of a geographical nature regarding your family, perhaps?"

Some warning bell echoed distantly through her mind, but her thinking had a black and explanding fuzzy border.

"It can happen again, you know," said Syndrome quietly, but he spoke right into her ear. "It can happen again... the injection, the drugs, the nightmares. I can make it all happen again, and maybe the Virus will come back for you this time."

Violet curled up slightly. Her mind was blurred and uncertain, but an underlying thread of fear suddenly ripped through her subconscious and hit her brain in a whiplash of fear.

She did not want to go back to that world of the waiting dead, but she knew that that world was likely to become permanent if she gave Syndrome the information he wanted. Her family were as good as dead if Syndrome found out where they lived.

"Do you want it to happen again?" murmured Syndrome, and Violet could detect wicked strands of fury.

"No," she whispered.

"Choose."

Then, just like that, Syndrome was gone, and Violet drowned once more in worried sleep.

-

It was maybe a day later.

Violet was sitting upright, alert and cross-legged, tired but not sleepy. She held a glass of water in one hand and sipped from it occasionally.

She had woken up maybe an hour ago, mind clear and lucid. She still suffered from some physical fatigue, but that was only to be expected. She remembered her previous hell, blurred over as it was, and Syndrome's threat. She tried not to dwell on it too much.

She was wearing different clothes to what she remembered: a light, black vest-top, and black jeans... she recognised them as her own, and assumed someone had taken them from her pack (wherever the hell it was). Her trainers were sitting uniformly by the bed. Someone must have changed her, and as soon as Syndrome came to visit, she was going to raise holy hell if she found out it wasn't a woman.

The door hissed open, and Violet stared sharply at the newcomer.

It was Red.

She looked somewhat worn, as if she'd had to do some gruelling work. Her blonde hair was tied back, and she wore a plain grey t-shirt and black pants.

"Red?" asked Violet, surprised. Red gave her a scared smile.

"Hey, Vi. Looking better."

"Feeling better. I reckon that drug is out of my system now. Have a seat."

Red moved over to sit by Violet, pulling a thin torch from her pocket as she went. She sat down by Violet, and Red gripped her chin with her fingers.

"Look into the light for me, please."

Violet complied. Red shone the light into each of Violet's eyes in turn, and nodded in satisfaction. "Nothing wrong up there. Any pains?"

"Um, yes. My neck - shoulder – _Red_ -"

"Only to be expected. That was a thocking great needle. The primary stiffness has died down but it will be tender for a while."

"Red, _what are you doing here_?"

"When you disappeared I was grabbed and hauled in for questioning. They held me for about an hour, and released me. About a week later, Syndrome approached me about my medical knowledge. He had a patient who was slipping away. That would be you, Vi."

Violet nodded, and indicated that Red should continue.

"I was shown into this room where you were lying comatose, looking like death. The first thing I did was to get you cleaned up. The second was to have some counterdrug administered into your bloodstream, to fight the chemical. Syndrome, intentionally, perhaps, appeared to have given you an overdose."

Red stared away, looking moody.

"You woke for the first time about two days after someone had brought me in, and asked for some water, and to use the bathroom. After that, things started to look better; you appeared to retain some vestiges of consciousness, even through nightmares. And now you're awake, and you look like death after being in a casserole pot for a couple of hours."

Violet's face creased in confusion. Red rolled her eyes and sighed, and Violet noticed the thin crows' feet around Red's eyes that hadn't been there before.

"I think you've lost maybe a stone in weight. Mostly dehydration - water loss, you know, but I think I've rectified that."

Violet looked down at herself, and didn't see anything different, but when she touched her face, she felt how her cheekbones were slightly more pronounced. She took a gulp of water to slap some sense of reality back.

"And you?" Violet asked shakily. Red shrugged.

"I've stayed and looked after you."

Violet looked down into her water glass.

"Thank you," she whispered, and was surprised when Red gave her a fierce hug.

"I don't know what you've done to deserve Syndrome's attention, but by God, I hope it was worth it."

"My father is Syndrome's worst enemy. He wants my father dead. I know where my father is. Syndrome doesn't. He wants me to rectify the situation."

Red pased for a moment. "And... torture...?"

"Yes. He's been quite inventive."

Red appeared to shakily pull herself together.

"Well, you appear quite chirpy, but you could do with a lot more bed rest."

"I don't think I'm going to get it."

Red looked at her and Violet could see alarm in her eyes.

"You... you seem... different. Older, maybe."

Violet examined herself mentally with frank curiosity, and nothing appeared changed. Mystified, she glanced at Red to see her shaking her head and smiling.

"Never mind. Humour an old woman."

Violet smiled in return. "So tell me," she said. "How long have I been out?"

-

Violet was sitting cross-legged on her bed, floating on the remnants of a painkiller high. She was resting her chin on her knuckles.

It had all been so... sudden.

A week. She had been in this place a week. Surely her parents must have noticed by now. After all, Violet had made it clear she would write postcards every three days, and so far, they were two short.

Snug - surely he must have noticed. Made sure she'd kept contact. Anything.

And as for herself... she thought she was coping with it remarkably, if worryingly, well. That nervous breakdown had never happened. Maybe because she was a super (albeit a neutered super - no powers), and she had been in similar situations, she could cope with it better than a normal person. Remarkable, really.

She was amazed she could still think lucidly, with all that pethidin still floating around in her bloodstream. (Pethidin, she had found out from Red, was a couple of steps below morphine.) No, the problem was that she was thinking too _jovially_.

Violet was drawn from her brood by the door opening. It was Syndrome.

_If it wasn't for Syndrome then my father would still be listening to the police scanner, getting maniacally depressed and having us move house every year._

This thought was so sudden, so unwarranted, that her brain staggered for a moment, internal gyroscope thrown akimbo. Her view of him slipped down a notch in intensity.

_He might hurt me but he healed the rest of my family._

_Smug git._

"Yes?" she said promptly. Syndrome looked a little off-balance for a moment, as though he was expecting a much meeker person, especially since he had just entered the room to find Violet bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, figuratively speaking. Violet supposed she should have been meeker. She'd just hang-glided over hell, after all.

"Feeling better."

"Yep." She was feeling a lot better, and a lot happier, after psychoanalysing Syndrome's effect on her family. Oh, and the painkillers might have had something to do with it.

Syndrome moved a little further into the room. There was a strange glint to his eye.

"Tell me, Violet Parr... what is it you want most, right now?"

"A lack of discontent and some emotional stability in my life."

Syndrome's expression was classic. Violet couldn't resist a smirk. It made him angry.

"Answer the question."

Violet stared into space for a couple of minutes. Family? Friends? To be free? To be _loved_?

No, those were the things that she thought she _should_ be feeling. She settled on a definite one.

"A shower, and a toothbrush," she said, with an air of finality. Syndrome's expression... what a kodak moment.

"A shower and a toothbrush," he said flatly. He'd lost all his menacing overtones, to be replaced by an aura of utter confusion.

"A shower," repeated Violet, staring dreamily away. "And a toothbrush... my teeth feel like sandpaper." She ran her tongue over them experimentally, and grimaced.

She risked a glance at Syndrome. He looked completely - nay, ridiculously - out of his depth. The humour didn't miss her. His look was one of complete confusion, bemused bewilderment and staggering surprise.

"A toothbrush," repeated Syndrome emotionlessly. He rubbed his head. "Women," he muttered under his breath. Violet burst out laughing.

Syndrome's air of dangerousness seemed to have evaporated, because he didn't get angry. His look of bemusement stayed with him. She tried to calm herself down, with some success - the laughter was hurting her rib.

"Would you rather I have stuck with emotional stability?" she asked, amused. Syndrome gave her a look which stated 'I have absobloodylutely no idea what you are talking about, because I have you at my mercy and all you do is dream about hygiene. Something is not right here.'

"So tell me... what do you want?" asked Violet, leaning back. The ghost of a grin twitched her lips.

This appeared to slap Syndrome back on track.

"I want to know where your family is currently residing."

"Hang on a minute, haven't we heard this song before? I thought we'd agreed that you couldn't get it out of me with a crowbar."

Syndrome seemed to be regathering some of his self-control. A smirk flickered on his face.

"Be as stubborn as you like. I haven't tried the sodium pentathol on you yet."

"Sodium pentathol... hang on a minute, isn't that -"

"The Truth Serum, yes."

"I was going to say, 'isn't that notoriously unreliable?' It just makes people talk more, not tell the truth."

"You know what sodium pentathol is?" He was evidently surprised.

"Of course. I graduated top in my high-school chemistry class."

There was a pause, and Syndrome said: "So I'm going to have to go through the whole hallucinogen thing again?"

"Don't sound _too_ annoyed... _you're_ not the one who had it forcibly injected into you."

"It's time-consuming and so far has proved ineffective... although I'm pretty sure that, given another week, it can break you."

Violet stared at him with frank amazement. Syndrome was a very strange person, emotionally speaking. He reacted to her mood. If she was scared, he played the part of the sneering warlord. If she was not bothered (in this case because she was on the vapours of a painkiller high) then he seemed chatty, conversational. He was an emotional chameleon: he adhered to the stereotype expected in conversation. Violet wondered if it was her that he was responding to - after all, she was a living reminder of how he used to be.

_Oh well, then. Best not ruin a good thing._

"So you're not going to bother?"

"Don't be daft. Of course I'm going to bother. I haven't spent the last five years rebuilding an empire to be felled at the first hurdle." He seemed marginally insulted, and his expression became sterner.

Violet moodily held out her palm. A thin violet shield shimmered momentarily into life, then winked out of existence. There was still that mental block, overriding her inner concentration. It served only to depress her more. She rested her chin on her palm and stared rather pointedly at Syndrome.

"So... the whole 'trip' thing is going to be repeated?"

"Yes."

She sighed, somewhat theatrically. "C'mon, you know I'm not gonna tell you. Threaten me, bribe me, cover me in sauce and throw me to the wolves, you know full well this girl isn't singing."

A dangerous, informal tone. A gamble on his emotions and predictablilty. Violet studied Syndrome under the guise of glaring at him, and thought she recognised his somewhat bemused expression: it was exactly the same one her father wore when talking to Edna. Bob couldn't put E in a box, get her personality down; to him, Edna was completely unpredictable. Syndrome must have felt that way about Violet right now. First toothbrushes, then wolves... _dear_ _me._

"So let me get this straight," said Syndrome, with a dangerous air of a man trying to talk his way through a maze. "You want, right now, a shower and a toothbrush. You would also know that sodium pentathol is useless. You would _regretfully_ prefer not to have another trip."

"Close enough."

"And you claim to be completely sane? This is not how it is supposed to go when being interrogated."

"Dunno. Never been properly interrogated before. Oh, sure, I've met the odd evil warlord, but it was more of a case of a couple of random questions about how I would like to die, and then lots of gunfire."

Syndrome stood right in front of her, arms folded over his chest. His expression was fierce and might have scared her some other time. Violet refused to be cowed.

"You're annoying, did you know that?" he snapped. Violet grinned at seeing him unnerved.

"So I can go?" she asked brightly, playing on his irritation. Syndrome growled in sheer rage, turned on his heel and was just exiting when Violet heard him growl, "I need some aspirin and she needs a lobotomy."


	6. VI

Violet sat in the corner of her cell, trying desperately to think her way out of this mess. Her body had been re-hydrated whilst in that hospital-style thing, and it had cleared her thinking considerably.

Red. Red was the key. Violet could not escape under her own power, and she needed her friend's help, but she had no idea when the woman would be allowed to visit again -

The door hissed open and Syndrome stepped in, running his eyes down a clipboard. He threw her a customary glance that seemed far too casual to be indifference. There was a gleam in his eyes she did not like, not at all.

She stood up to face him, but he didn't move forward. He tapped the clipboard, transferred it to his other hand, and smirked at her.

"Why, hello there."

_Oh, this is bad..._

"What the hell do you want _this_ time?"

"I've decided that you're a drain on my resources, and quite possibly a liability. So we're going to try the trip one last time, and if you're still stubborn, then I'm going to have you shot."

Violet went completely numb. Just like that.

So... this was it? This was what it all boiled down to? Three years of official superwork, only to die at the hands of a villain she had _already defeated_?

Violet wasn't ready to die. She supposed she never would be, but now? This young? She had barely started her life. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen - she wasn't meant to go this way.

Violet drew in a shaky breath and half-turned away from Syndrome, sinking her teeth into her bottom lip as a layer of diamonds formed in her eyes, threatening to spill.

Syndrome noticed.

"Oh, now come on... I could give you far worse deaths."

This was true. Violet didn't care. She was going to _die_.

Violet slipped her headband from her forehead in one fluid movement, and used a corner to wipe away the tears. Her hair cascaded down her shoulders, almost over her eyes. She tucked a corner behind her ear, but it was more of a gesture to make sure she was still who she thought she was; she stared fiercely at the ceiling, blinking away more tears.

Her lungs were still; this was not the kind of crying that would warrant sobs. This was sheer, straight-from-the-heart tears of failure and quiet misery. She wasn't even legally a full adult and yet she was going to die.

She twisted the headband in her hands, winding it through her fingers, knotting about her wrists. This time, she couldn't stop the tears from falling and she turned away completely from Syndrome.

She fought for a second to make sure her lungs were steady, and said in a voice that hardly wavered, "Skip the trip. Shoot me tomorrow."

"You sure?" He sounded surprised.

She leaned her forehead against the cool, dull grey metal of her cell wall, and this time she couldn't stop the way her shoulders shook. It was not worth the pain of another hallucinogenic experience; there was no point delaying it. Best be over, and over quickly.

It sounded as if Syndrome was leaving, but no; he appeared to come back again, dragging something with him.

She turned slightly, still resting her head against the wall, to see him sitting down on a chair, against the door. He indicated to a chair seated opposite him, but she shook her head. He hooked it with a foot, dragged it closer, and propped his feet up on it. Violet didn't take her eyes from him. It still managed to surprise her that his movements were so reminiscent of the teenager he must have been once: carefree and undignified.

She wiped her eyes, put her headband back on, inhaled shakily, and turned to face him once more. He looked strange, like this. Relaxed. Too casual.

"Well, seeing how tomorrow isn't going to be the greatest time to ask, I want to know what the hell this 'Virus' thing is."

Violet stared at him for a little bit longer.

"Well?"

Violet seated herself cross-legged on the floor. "I don't know," she said flatly. Syndrome rolled his eyes.

"You went on about it often enough. Come on."

Violet scrubbed at her eyes. She felt that her sudden flush of emotions had used up a lot of her energy, and she couldn't be bothered being distanced anymore.

"I don't know what it was, but it was killing everyone. They were talking and breathing but they were... dead. They were all dead."

"Except for me."

"I found you on the top of the volcano... of the old island. You were... just sat there, looking out to the sea. Just bloody sat there. I told you the Virus was coming but you just... just sat there, and you said..." Violet shut her eyes, trying to remember. She did not open them again. "You said: 'I'm the only one who's not dead yet.'" She swallowed. "I tried to warn you. Tried to drag you away, 'cause we had to hide someplace. Somewhere where the Virus couldn't get us."

Violet was silent for a long time.

"Why did you try to save me?"

"Because you were the only one left. You and me, and I didn't want anyone else to die."

"Not even me?" Joking.

"Especially not you. You just turned to me, and said, 'Where to?' There was nowhere to run and hide; you saw that, even if I didn't. You were more intelligent than I was, and you just waited, when I tried to run. Then it got you. You were gone, and it was after me."

"Why 'especially' me?"

"Because you fixed my family."

It was Syndrome's turn for a long bout of silence.

"Excuse me?"

"If it wasn't for you then the Supers couldn't have come out of hiding again. You pulled my father out of his depression. You helped my family come together as a unit, recognise our powers, ignite Jack-Jack. You healed us."

That had been painful. Still, she was going to die tomorrow, so no problem. Violet hugged her knees, and glanced up at Syndrome.

He was staring at her too sharply, finger tracing the stretch of silver scar underneath his eye. He looked disbelieving, and angry. Mostly angry. His feet were no longer resting on the other chair.

"Had it occurred to you," he said softly, dangerously, "That by killing you I could tear them apart again?"

Violet shrugged. "Then we'll have had five, six more years than we would have had before and I'm thankful. They know that a super's job is a dangerous one."

"They'd be ripped apart."

"I know."

And Syndrome was standing, sweeping the chair away from him, and crossing the cell in brisk, purposeful strides. He reached down, and, with both hands, hauled her up by the front of her top and slammed her hard against the wall.

"I don't think you're taking this seriously enough," he hissed, eyes now almost navy with fury. "I think you need another lesson in _pain_. Your father _shattered_ my dreams, twenty-odd years ago. I was a _kid_. And now you're telling me I _fixed_ your _family?_ "

Violet's hands flashed up to grip his wrists but the muscles beneath were as hard as oak wood, and about as malleable. Fear began to circle her system again.

Her breath came faster as Syndrome twisted his fists, jerking her higher up on the wall, stifling her breathing. Her own grip flashed up his arms to tug on his wrists - and Violet felt a slight bump in the hard, acrylic-like material... a release catch.

She needed this remote to get out of the base. She also needed to distract Syndrome long enough for her to remove it - and soon.

"Then let me thank you for it," she growled. She flashed her head forwards, and pressed her lips against Syndrome's.

There was a moment of pure, frozen shock. Syndrome appeared to seize up in surprise, and Violet's finger flicked the catch of the remote so that it was loose. But the moment passed and Syndrome was rearing his head away. His eyes were a mixture of distrust, shock, and anger.

"What the hell was that?" he snarled. Violet's fear exploded once more - _the remote still wasn't loose enough_ , and he would notice it in a minute. She had failed. She deserved death. Her chaste kiss had not been enough.

She felt the grip of his fists tighten yet again, and he pulled her even further up the wall. She was now balancing on her toes, not quite on eye level with Syndrome. But she could see his eyes well enough, and there was a glint in Syndrome's eye, and before Violet knew it, Syndrome was the one kissing _her_.

It was Violet's turn for utter shock to pervade her senses. This wasn't real and _could not_ be happening. Why would - why -

... but, once again, logic had jumped in and prevented a full-blown panic attack ( _advantage of being a super_ , she mused detachedly). Here was her last chance. She had better take it. Never mind the _why is he doing it_ \- time to think about the _how do I get out of this_.

So she relaxed into his kiss, and after a few moments she felt the grip on her shirt loosen very, very slightly. And her knee was flashing up and out as her hand ripped the control away, quickly quickly, and Syndrome was sinking to the floor as Violet latched the remote onto her arm and was running, running for the door which sensed the approach of the remote and opened for her. And now she was out in the corridor, not pausing to consider directions but knowing that she had absolutely no time to spend thinking. So she ran, looking for a lift, and elevator, anything, just knowing in some primal way that she was underground and needed to go _up_.

Corridors flashed by and no alarm had been sounded yet, but this did not comfort Violet. She had literally seconds, and she intended to gain as much ground as possible.

A guard rounded a corner but Violet, spiked on adrenaline and running on terror, lashed out and caught him around the head. He crumpled to the floor but Violet did not look back, didn't pause for breath though her lungs were afire and her blood roared. There was no Goddammed _time_.

There was a lift at the end of the corridor and Violet bolted into it, jabbing the highest button with her finger, again and again and again. Then the alarm sounded.

It was a ridiculously loud siren, and the lift halted immediately. Claustrophobia, something Violet had never really had to deal with before, kicked in.

She knew now that panic would be of no use. She had gained ground. That was all that mattered for now.

Violet braced her hands against the sides of the lift and took in four deep, gasping breaths that cleared her head of terror and calmed her somewhat. She had been in escape situations before. How would she handle it?

She started with her environment. The lift was small and slightly round, with a concave roof, but comfortably furnished with a smooth floor and calm white walls. There appeared to be no roof hatch.

Violet tried to think logically. She was out of contact with the main contingent of the building, and therefore would not be getting much current to the electrified walls. Would it be possible...?

Experimentally, Violet tried to bring up a small shield in the palm of her hand. It was there, for all of four seconds; then focusing became too hard. But she knew it worked, now. Four seconds was a long time, if you count down in your head.

Violet tried to imagine a cone with a sharp point; she opened her eyes and crafted her hands so that the shape in her mind became a shield. She immediately felt the intolerance from her concentration but pushed anyway, creating a large hole in the metal of the ceiling.

Fear jumped again; she had been in the lift for about thirty seconds, and she could not afford to lose this time. So she hauled herself up unto the curved roof, and surveyed her situation afresh.

The shaft she was in was round and lit every two meters or so by a soft yet powerful light. And there was a maintenance ladder.

She began to climb.

-

"The boss sounded really pissed."

"I'm not surprised. She's got one of his remotes. How the hell that happened I have no idea - Boss always nulls any security cameras when he's in a room."

"Can we track it?"

"Done already - she's in an elevator shaft, and climbing. We're getting ready a whole battalion to say hi."

"She's gonna get creamed."

"Yep."

"Rather her than me. Hey, you got a glitch in camera six -"

"Nah, it's always like that. Hit it once - like so - and it fixes."

"Oh yeah. Is the girl on camera yet?"

"Should be, in a minute - whoa, there you go. Camera twelve."

"What level is she on?"

"Four."

"She's really moving, I'll give her that. I'll tell the boss."

"Be _optimistic_ about it."

"I know, I know... hi, patch me through to Syndrome. Cheers..."

-

Violet paused for breath again. She had no idea how far she'd gone up but her ears had popped sometime back, and she knew she was going higher. That was good.

She had passed a few elevator doors but she wanted to go as high as possible before having to battle her way through guard-infested corridors.

Violet wiped the sweat from her forehead and leaned her head against the ladder. The cool metal helped some.

For a moment, her thoughts flashed back to Syndrome, along with a very large red question mark. _Why the hell had he bothered?_ Unless it was some new technique of interrogation, although how it left time and space for talking was beyond her imagination, thank God.

She resumed her climb.

Barely ten metres above her was the top of the lift shaft, and a lift door. Violet took another breather, when she was standing on a rung on the same level as the door, and tried not to imagine what could be waiting for her. Worst scenario? A million war-worthy mercenaries. Best? Empty, with a hot air balloon and a pair of ruby shoes. And she could click her heels three times whilst murmuring "There's no place like home."

A best-case scenario was about as likely as the ruby slippers.

Her hand slipped to the door, and her questing fingers found an emergency release. Violet shoved one foot through the doors, stopping them as they attempted to re-close, and hauled herself through. Pushing a couple of strands of hair from her face, she surveyed this floor.

There were about fifty robotic-looking guards waiting for her with armed guns and blank masks. They wore identical armour, held identical weapons, and stood in an identical stance. They were standing in front of a wide-open hangar door. Tropical sunlight blasted in through the huge frame. Violet could see trees waving gently in a light breeze, could feel that sweet wind as it swirled around her body, lifting away some of the mugginess from climbing the lift shaft. She heard birds, saw the azure sky, and wanted to cry. It was pure torture. She was seventy paces from freedom and golden light.

"Reviewing your chances?" said a nearby voice. Violet's eyes narrowed, and she scanned the room - her vision, accustomed to the relative gloom of the elevator shaft, had evaporated at the sunlight. Purple spots tangoed in front of her eyes for a moment.

Syndrome was leaning against the all next to the hangar. His face was nothing short of malicious - sheer anger fused with hatred, all married to something that vaguely resembled bitterness, although Violet wasn't sure.

"Yes," she replied simply. She was tired, thirsty, desperately hungry and was nearly broken. The last week and a half had removed more from her body than merely physical strength - she had faced her worst fears, had seen everybody die in a psychotic episode and had gained some paranoia.

"What more can you do to me?" she asked, and was horrified to notice a very slight tremble. Syndrome heard it. His grin widened.

"So _this_ is all it took? A little bit of _sunlight_? I wish I'd know that from the start."

Violet looked away, determined not to cry. Unconsciously, her hands had balled into fists and her limbs were shaking from a mixture of anger and fatigue. She realised that she had better sit before she collapsed.

So she slowly turned her back on Syndrome and slid down the wall next to the lift. The weapons of the soldiers followed her. She put her face into her hands, and there was a long silence.

"In case you hadn't noticed, the fighters currently standing in front of you are the latest generation of warrior robots," said Syndrome smugly. "I've ordered them not to shoot you until you're standing two meters forward from your current position. It should be interesting... you choosing when you die, and all."

Violet didn't look up. Violet didn't move. Violet didn't act as though she heard him. She didn't see the point.

There was another silence.

"You still can't use your shields in here, you know."

Violet had surmised this much, otherwise he would not have picked this spot for their final confrontation. Then something in Syndrome's attempts to fill in the silences struck her.

Was he _uncomfortable_ in the situation?

"Why did you bother?" she asked dully. The hangar took her words and played basketball with them for a moment, echoing them, raising their volume. Changing them. _Why did you bother kissing me? Why did you bother fighting me? Why are you bothering_ now?

Syndrome had no answer for that. None at all.

Violet looked up to outside the hangar. A bird flew past, silhouetted for a moment against afternoon sunshine, and Violet tried to think practically.

She was nearer the surface, so her shields would be just strong enough to hold for maybe three, four seconds. It wasn't long, but it could make all the difference. She was thinking straighter, after a moment to rest.

The golden light outside had darkened, she noticed. In fact, the azure sky had become ominously purple. The trees were silent; the animals were still. The breeze had stopped... the calm before the storm.

Purpose filled her, deadly and black as she rose from her sitting position. She would not die cowering like a frightened animal; hell, she would not _die_.

Her eyes scanned the hangar, glinting now with deadly design. This new stance appeared to unnerve Syndrome for a second, because he did not appear to know for a second that she had stood.

"You'll never escape the volcano, you know," he snarled, any pretence at smugness gone. He was angry now, as if Violet had wounded him. Violet didn't even spare him a glance.

"A volcano again? Quite the phallus. Not trying to make up for something, are we?"

The first few drops of rain fell through the opening of the hangar door. Rain. Freedom. She had tasted neither for almost two weeks.

Violet backed into the metal wall and took one deep breath to steady her nerves.

Then, she jumped.

The wrapped the shield around her into a cone, piercing the air, eliminating friction or air resistance. Due to the strange anti-gravity effect of her shield, she sliced through the air and into blessed, blessed wind. She landed with a splurge into a patch of mud, amidst the heavy rain. Instantly, she was soaked and hot - the sheer humidity of the tropical environment threatened to overheat her, away from the air-conditioning of Syndrome's lair. But she didn't have time for this.

She had shot past the robots far too fast for them to react and they were running at her as she picked herself up from her crash site and began to run, ripping off the white control from her wrist as she went. She didn't want to risk being tracked through it. Within seconds of this she had called a shield around herself, and her vigilance was rewarded when the first splash of bullets hit her and bounced.

The forest ahead of her was all uphill; the hangar had emerged into the very bottom point of the funnel cone Red had described for her. She had a long way to go, and it was all uphill. The forest was dark black, green and purples in the dull, heavy light of the storm. Fiercely, she blinked water from her eyes as she began to run up the slope, just as she heard the sound of machines taking to the air.

Stealth was no use at this point, none at all. So she just ran, supplying energy to her shields only when her instincts warned her that she would need it. She was about a mile up the side of the funnel now but she was stronger than she had thought; she had not begun to reach the stage where every breath was a battle for energy. She ran with a long, steady pace that was undeterred by whiplash branches or hidden roots.

Twigs slapped at her, leaving muddy streaks across her face and body. The rain was as heavy as ever, and Violet prayed that it disrupted any infra-red sensors those robots might have had.

So she ran, fuelled on calm terror and the desperation to live to see another day. She could probably make it up to the tip of this funnel but then she would be out of energy. There was no way she could run the fifty-odd miles back to the harbour.

Violet didn't focus on it. Instead, she caught a glimpse of something through the canopy of the trees and upped her pace.


	7. VII

It had taken about half an hour but now she lay in the thin undergrowth at the top of the funnel. She couldn't run any further. Three miles in thirty minutes had drained her reserves of power.

She lay as still as she could in the thick of a leafy plant, hoping that it was nulling her heat signature, and tried to think what would happen to her when they found her.

Death. A slow, painful one.

Her ribs throbbed with a steady pulse: a low, hot pain. They had started to hurt about two-thirds of the way up the hill. Violet supposed she must have done something to them again. Violet was too tired to cry, so she listened instead.

She heard the robot whirr of a machine flying overhead. She heard raised human voices of footsoldiers. She heard the choppy hum of human-piloted Viper craft.

How to get down from the volcano? _How_?

Violet tried to kick her exhausted brain into action, but with the warm rain pouring down on her and the humidity of the tropical air pressing down, she found it difficult to think at all, let alone in a straight line.

Violet took a deep breath as an idea lit up her brain like a fireworks display. She might not be able to make it to the harbour but, if she persevered, she could _probably_ make it to the tower -

_... Violet scrunched up her eyes. It was just possible to make out the tip of what looked like a manmade structure, if you squinted and looked at the top of the hill..._

\- and she could try to radio for help.

For a moment, she let the rain course down her body, through her soaked top and through her long dark hair. Then she was up, and she was running again.

It was all flat land she had to run across. The tower was on the same level as the top of the funnel volcano, and so all she had to do was survive. If she kept it steady and slow, she could be there in a few minutes.

Violet looked up at the canopy above her, reached for the nearest branch, and hauled herself up. The rain had not tapered and the bark was rough yet slippery beneath her fingers; she would have to be careful.

It didn't take her long to reach the top of the tree and she took a second to glance around her. The tips of the trees were eerily still in the no-wind-torrential-rain of the storm, and everything was a deep shade of blue, green, purple or grey. It was beautiful, in a sense, but Violet had no time to notice the view; she was more focused on the wooden communications tower about two hundred paces away from her, to the north-west. Then gunfire kicked up the leaves around her.

Something drew a dark line of fiery pain through her shoulder just as she saw a squadron of four Viper craft heading towards her. The impact of the gunfire had knocked her backwards. She summoned a platform which caught her before she hit the ground, then dissolved it unceremoniously and hit the leaf litter of the forest floor running. She was nearly there; so goddamn _close!_

There was a large pulsing monster where her shoulder should have been, but Violet ignored it and the way blood was flowing from her newly-acquired bullet wound. She _had_ to get to that tower.

She ran again. She could see the tower through the trees; one hundred and fifty paces... one twenty... one hundred...

She burst out into the clearing surrounding the tower and phased out. The rain bounced off the space she occupied and she left muddy footprints behind her, but she prayed the Vipers were too high up to notice.

The tower was a short, squat, wooden creation that had a satellite dish balanced somewhat precariously at the top. She could see the door for it getting closer... closer... twenty paces... ninet-

She collided with something that flashed in front of her and she sprawled in the mud, surrendering her invisibility. Everything was too fast; a blur of a sights and sounds and smells. She fought back; she only knew it to be an enemy.

Blinded with rain and mud, she slung away the foreign body. Adrenaline roared through her blood, drowning out the screaming bullet in her shoulder. Hearing muffled curses, she pulled herself up and struck out. Her fist connected with something but then a grip tightened around her arm, ripping her off her feet, where she promptly had an intimate reunion with the soaked earth. She brought up a shield as something slammed into it and dissolved it again, opting for manoeuvrability rather than armour over the unknown foe who could see her, but couldn't be seen. She kicked out as her attacker found a grip on her hair and she delivered a punch to what she assumed was her enemy's face. She had no chance to wipe the rain from her eyes. And suddenly it was all pressure, pain, vertigo as something slammed into her with the force of a small plane. She crashed to the mud again and instantly forgot which way gravity was supposed to go as she fought her attacker and tried to find purchase on both the slippery ground and the moving body of her foe. But the rain melted all friction until they were nothing but a grappling pair of adversaries, both trying to not drown in mud or rain, and both trying to gain the upper hand through a multitude of kicks and punches and vicious combat. This was not fighting; this was a grotesque ballet, a drunken dance where neither was winning and all that was left was slick rain, soaked aggression and a sheer desperation to win. Violet was trying but she could slowly feel herself being overpowered - her opponent was heavier, taller, stronger, and not as fatigued as she was - and she couldn't see to use her shields. Contact was too close for invisibility to be any use. And then, with a sudden twist, lurch and lunge, she was beaten.

Her shoulder exploded in brief, bright agony, forcing the world to spin a little around her, sending her fingertips numb, and dropping her to her knees. And something was pressed to the base of her throat, annoying the skin, and a grip snaked around her neck below the jaw. And she was left clutching at this grip and looking down the shaft of gun, along a white glove, past a stretch of white remote, up a length of black-clad arm, up a shoulder tensed with muscle and to Syndrome's face.

His lips were twisted in an open snarl, and his blue eyes were nothing short of evil. Rivulets of water traced their beads down his scar; he, too, was totally soaked and somewhat mud-splattered, his once-black clothing now a confused mixture of dark colours and clinging to his frame. His orange hair was brown from the water and mud, and stuck to his face. Violet noticed detachedly that there was a thin line of crimson snaking its way from his hairline. He was breathing hard and glaring harder down at her, slightly tightening his grip on Violet's throat. The hand gripping the gun was harsh and unforgiving.

Syndrome's grip was cutting off Violet's air and wobbled on her knees, almost falling the rest of the way, a thin grey mist covering the world. Syndrome relaxed his grip, very, very slightly, and Violet could breathe again.

Her hands were free, but his grip was longer than hers, and he had her at arm's length. Shields could do nothing for her: the gun was in direct contact with her skin.

"This is Syndrome to base," said Syndrome very quietly, not taking his eyes from Violet's. "I've have got her. Repeat, I have got her. Send all troops back to base."

"Yessir."

The communication broke off with a snap, and Syndrome's thumb rested back on her neck. He had barely moved.

They stayed that way in silence for a little while. Syndrome did not pull the trigger, and Violet did not struggle.

"Why are you doing this to me?" snarled Syndrome at last. He spoke in a low, dangerous voice. "I have everything running quite smoothly, and then _you_ pop up and throw a spanner in the works. _You_ are to my operation what _grit_ is to _clockwork_."

"You forgot to mention my family," she gasped out through a constricted throat and a gauze of bullet pain. Syndrome's glare darkened.

" _Your family_ is why you are currently here. _They_ are not the ones being held, _at gunpoint_ , in a tropical storm." He paused for a second. "Admit it, Violet. It's why you're here, isn't it? Sick of doing things the old-fashioned way?"

Violet said nothing. She froze up. _How could he know this?_ Time to strike him back.

She dug her fingers behind the web of skin between forefinger and thumb on Syndrome's hand, giving her more air to breath, and tried not to tug on the flesh that surrounded her left shoulder.

"And _you_ , _Buddy_? Sick of always getting it wrong? Is that why you're doing this now?" _Are you evil, or merely misunderstood?_

"My name is not _Buddy_!"

" _Why not?_ "

Her own fierce, tired gaze was returned with a steely one. They'd both hit nerves, and they knew it.

Violet looked up, to the purple-stormy sky. The rain was still torrential and, if Violet's geographical knowledge of tropical areas was correct, would continue to be so for another hour at least. She was going to die under lavender storm clouds, fighting till the end, in a wet soil grave. She could live with that, in a manner of speaking. _So, let's go for the gold._

Syndrome's other remote, still on his right wrist, let the water slide from it as if it were oiled; so Violet let her right hand close very loosely around his left wrist. Closer contact.

"Why did you kiss me?"

Once more, she received no answer. Only angry silence. She could see death, and it was peaceful.

"Please," she said softly, just enough to be heard over the rain. "Please. For the love of God, make it quick." And the hand that had been on his wrist covered the hand that was on her throat. Skin contact. It sparked in his eyes.

Once more, and not for the first time, she put her trust in him: She temporarily put her trust in him to do the job he had come to do, to do it well, and _not to leave her on her own._

He had not failed her. He had not failed her family. She looked at him, calm, forgiving, and perhaps he saw this in her eyes because he straightened up a little, eyes widening slightly. He sensed the trust she had placed in him and it unnerved, maybe even shocked him. The contact of her hand on his had sent a jolt through his system, she could see it in his eyes. But neither his grip, nor the gun, wavered.

The coolness of the falling water was chilling Violet's skin, giving her gooseflesh. The humidity of the air had lessened now that they were not under the cover of the trees. She tried desperately not to shiver. She grew angry, and impatient.

"What are you waiting for?" she asked hoarsely. She wanted it to be one bright flare of white pain before she slept forever. "Well?"

"Answer me one question, _Incredigirl_ ," he said softly, "And I'll answer yours."

"Deal."

He stood there, rain pouring down his saturated body, gun harsh against her throat, watching her with a curious expression of anger and bitterness. Though he had no right to be bitter about _anything_.

"How much do you hate me?"

It was like a slap. Her eyes widened as she tried to figure out an appropriate response. Why would he ask something like that?

Her mind flashed over the previous couple of weeks, searching, probing, studying every little emotion that she could remember. The results came back to her frontal lobe.

She didn't. Not at all.

Violet knew she should. He had done so much to her; broken her ribs, sent her on a hallucinatory trip, had her running for her life in a tropical storm. And even before that, trying to kill her family, stealing her baby brother. And not once could she remember looking at him in a way that made her hate him. Oh, there was fear, plenty of that; after all, he wouldn't have been a successful manager of the entire operation if he couldn't instil fear. But not once, not even once, could she remember regarding him in a light that suggested genuine hatred. Pity, maybe. But no hatred.

She grew _angry_.

"You have tried to kill my father," she said in a dangerously low voice. "You tried to kill my mother and brother. You tried to kidnap my baby brother. You tried to kill _me_. You stuck a needle in my neck, sent me down a spiral of hallucinogenic drugs and have generally made my life Hell."

"Well observed."

"Shut up. _So why is it that I don't hate you?_ "

For a second, just for a second, she felt his surprise. But one second was just enough.

She ripped herself forwards, breaking his grasp. He stumbled, thrown off-balance. Violet stood up fast, angling her hipbone toward his waist so that she could throw him over her hip using his weight as momentum - an old Ju Jitsu move she remembered from long ago. And she had the gun and fired, fired fired fired fired fired into the soggy earth until the click of empty chambers rattled back at her. Then she was running, running as fast as she could to the tower. Praying for anything. A miracle. _Please, God._

She burst in through the wooden door to find a sort of maintenance bay; some Viper craft were lying around in various bits and pieces. A ladder led up to another deck where computers sat looking dark and moody. Cables ran through the wall to what must have been the satellite dish.

There were two helmetless guards who turned to look at her from the floor level, and immediately their hands went to their weapons. Violet realised she was still carrying the gun, and shaking in a way that probably didn't instil hope, or, for that matter, make her look sane.

"Put the gun down," said one of them calmly. He appeared to be the older, probably about forty, but fit for his age: he was well-built with hair like combed iron wires and expression that said he'd seen it all before. She found a little solace in his measured calm.

"You could both shoot me, but what's the bet that I could take one of you down with me?" she snarled, hoping the lie would cover her fear. "Want to have a race?" The hand holding the empty gun was pointing toward them, but she put her other hand behind her back, making a fist. If need be, she could summon a shield in an instant.

The younger of the two began to shake. He was lithe with sandy hair, and slight stubble. He couldn't have been more than twenty-five. "Please, I've got a wife and kid."

"I don't want to hurt you. Just give me something that flies."

The older shrugged. "This is a repair bay. It's all broken."

Violet exhaled heavily, looking around her. Her eyes spotted what looked like khaki green rucksacks hanging from rows of pegs on the wall. She recognised them immediately, and nodded toward them. "Do those work?"

There was a roar of anger from outside that echoed across the clearing. Violet shot forward, grabbed one, dropped the empty gun and was fighting her way onto the roof through the satellite dish wiring when the door on the deck below her burst open.

Fuelled once more by panic, she pushed with her shield again. The wiring tore with a fizz of sparks, and she clambered up through the hole as a gun report rocked through the tower, shattering wood near her retreating leg.

Oh, yes: the two guards, with those nice, shiny, fully-loaded weapons.

Violet was now on the sloped roof of the tower, just underneath the satellite dish. The roof was wet and slimy from the rain, which was still strafing down. She stumbled, and the parachute dropped from her grasp. It hit the roof and slid, slid, slid. And it was gone, over the edge. Just like that.

But the force of her tumble slip had sent her sliding down, too. She caught herself on the edge of the gutter just before she fell over the side, and looked down.

It was a cliff face. A hundred foot drop. At the bottom there was some rocky debris and a slope leading down to the lowest point on the island. She could see the white lights of the harbour, glittering in the distance. And the parachute had snagged a shoulderstrap on a wooden piece of guttering. Almost laughing with relief, she leaned forward with her left arm -

And pain ripped through her shoulder. Sheer, unadulterated agony pierced her nervous system.

_Oh God. My shoulder._

Forgotten in the buzzsaw of adrenaline, her shoulder shot a brief, bright blast of pain through her skull, to remind her it was there. The world reeled sickeningly for a moment, and Violet clung to the wooden roof as if it would save her from oblivion. In a sense, it would.

She opened her eyes and wiped away the rainwater with her good arm to see Syndrome quietly, calmly and efficiently reloading his gun. He had evidently picked it up from where she had dropped it.

"Given up on lasers?" she croaked out through the rain. Syndrome shrugged; a move so neutral in itself that she immediately became suspicious.

"They don't always work."

"Nothing stops a metal slug moving at six hundred metres per second, huh?"

Her right hand was questing the wooden guttering until it came into contact with the green strap of the parachute. It seemed okay. Her shoulder throbbed angrily, but it seemed to have a settled down a little.

"Why keep running, Incredigirl?" he asked softly, and there was a strange glint in his eye. "I'm only going to hunt you down anyway."

"I'm that important?" she gasped, as she felt the rain on her body begin to taper up, become softer. Slower. Thank God. Somebody up there likes me.

"You've been a good one, Violet, I'll give you that," said Syndrome casually, cocking the gun and pointing it at her. "The best yet, in fact. Not even your father was as good at this game as you were."

Violet snarled. " _My life isn't a game._ "

"Really?" said Syndrome mildly. "Mine is." He pulled the trigger.

But Violet had been expecting this and was already rolling over the edge of the roof -

For a sickening moment, everything spun. But she retained her grip on the parachute, and was thrusting each arm into the straps, tightening the strap about her waist and yanking on the ripcord as hard as she could -

_My God - it's not working -_

But then came a jerking feeling as the parachute unfolded into a bright strip of colour above her, and Violet laughed with sheer relief, and she was flying, flying over that rocky pile of certain death.

Violet snapped her hand to one of the control wires and focused, bringing up a skintight shield around herself and the parachute just as a storm of machine-gun bullets hit the top of the material. She chanced a look back: there were six guards on the roof, aiming for her. She looked up to see the rain bouncing harmlessly from the purple shield on the cloth of the parachute.

Violet began to entertain the hope, for the first time in a week, that she would perhaps emerge from this alive. The joy that swept through her was fierce and uncontrolled.

Speaking of uncontrolled...

Violet tugged experimentally on one of the control strings, and the parachute began to veer to port. Violet hastily corrected it, trying not to over-compensate. She'd been power-kiting when she was about fifteen, and the mechanics were roughly the same.

Right. Aim for the harbour building. And to get there fast, she needed to go lower.

She carefully dropped the parachute, steering with as much precision as she could muster. She began to pick up speed, but she'd covered a lot of the distance in a remarkably short time.

Violet took a moment to look around her. The island, lush with dark green life, was getting steadily closer to her, but that was what she needed. The rain was nothing more than a drizzle now. She couldn't hear the sounds of any approaching Viper craft so she had another couple of minutes to spare Syndrome had to reverse the order he had given a few minutes ago, and the soldiers needed time to get going...

The white building of the harbour was getting closer... closer...

She prepared for a rough landing.

Violet hit the soggy ground and her knees buckled as she had still been moving at speed. She dissolved the shield around her parachute but expanded the one she had around herself. The straps around her waist and shoulders burst apart, and Violet was running to the harbour. Due to the rain, the grounds were entirely deserted.

She stopped, and listened. There was a jet powering up.

_That'd do._

She carried on running but instead of going into the harbour she veered left, heading around the building and to the concrete runway on the other side.

The jet was long and white and sleek, with purring engines and a stripe along the side. Violet couldn't see anyone in the cockpit, but it wouldn't have been left unattended. She wondered how the pilot would react to her, and forced a grin even thought the world had gone distinctly cloudy around the edges. She was nearly there.

The jet was getting ready for takeoff, and was powering up its engines. The loading steps were still there, though, and Violet bounded up them, promptly crashing into a stocky figure.

"Go," she gasped, trying to stop herself from falling backwards. "For the love of God, _go_."

There was one confused second where Snug stared at her in complete shock, beginning to form the question _where the hell did you come from_ , but Violet was too tired to be bothered about mere coincidences. "Go!" she yelled again.

Snug didn't waste time with his questions, even though his expression would have had the proverbial cat hanged, drawn and quartered with curiosity. Violet kicked away the loading steps and slid the door closed on its well-oiled grooves. She felt the plane begin to move forwards, and struggled to the autopilot chair on legs that were rapidly turning to lead. Her vision wavered slightly.

"He's got short-range missiles, I'll bet, and about sixty machine-gunning flying machines after us. Don't waste time." She paused, and looked at Snug's set features. "Incidentally - _what the hell are you doing here_?"

"I could say the same for you!" he almost yelled, fear infusing into his face as he got the plane to move at a faster speed. "I told you to get off this island quick! That _and_ you're bleeding all over the chair! _What the hell happened to you? What was it!_ "

Violet glanced down at her shoulder. For such as small puncture wound, it bled quite profusely. Then Snug pulled a lever all the way back and the plane's speed went from something like five to one hundred and forty miles per hour in three seconds. Violet, pressed back in her chair, saw Snug grimacing in concentration as he managed to get the plane in the air about fifty yards from where the runway curved into the sea.

They were finally, blessedly airborne. Violet laughed in sheer delight at it. She was off that island. No matter what happened now, she was away.

"Violet Parr, you are gonna tell me _what_ _happened_ , and you are gonna tell me _now_. It has been _two weeks_ -"

The radar began to beep, and the noise was all too familiar. But, she mused in an eerie oasis of calm as Snug hurriedly began to flip switches, she knew how to handle this one.

It was strange - she felt like she was viewing her body from above, like a balloon, just waiting for the string to be forgotten and released. To float away. She tried to focus.

"Don't do anything. Let 'em crash into us."

"What?" roared Snug. Violet gave him a tired smile.

"I've been in this situation before. Trust me."

Snug yanked hard on the controls and the plane took a dive, spinning, until he pulled it up again. The first of six missiles hit the sea and drowned.

"Snug! Please! I know how to handle this!"

Snug stared at her for a long, long moment, his ruddy features unsmiling, uncertain, and unconfident.

"Please," she repeated softly.

Snug hit the autopilot button, then got down on his knees and began to pray.

" _Our father, who art in heaven..."_

Violet placed one hand on the control panel in front of her, and focused. She had a little energy left. Not much, but buried way down deep. Energy she rarely needed to draw upon.

"... _hallow'ed by thy name_..."

She let a shield shimmer into a existence around the plane for half a second, and gasped at the power drain. It wasn't going to be enough.

_It'll have to be._

Violet felt the missiles draw nearer.

"... _thy kingdom come, thy will be done_..."

Nearer.

"... _on earth as it is in heaven_..."

Three, two, one -

"... _give us this day our daily br_ -"

Violet _pushed_ her power through her arm and into the mainframe of the jet. A purple shield slammed into existence around the plane and half a second later, five missiles impacted onto it.

The shield took the blast, and then promptly disappeared. Violet soundlessly crumpled to the floor of the cabin, whirling in a vortex of semi-consciousness.

The jet didn't even shake from the impact. Violet heard Snug get to his feet through a spinning void of unconsciousness.

"Jesus," he whispered. "Violet -"

She felt him kneel by her, felt two fingers on her neck take her pulse. And all the time she was smiling inside because she'd done it. She'd gotten off of the godforsaken island alive, and roughly in one piece.

She felt Snug lift her into his arms and, a few moments later, was placed on a soft, flat horizontal surface.

She fought the veil of blackness for a moment. Sleep or unconsciousness was trying to snare her mind, but she held it at bay for a moment.

"Sn'g - did I -"

"You did fine, kid. Rest up." There was the sound of tearing material, then a sense of pressure and pain on her shoulder. "You did fine. Rest."

Violet drowned in darkness.


	8. VIII

She woke, once, for a while. It was dark. She could see through slitted eyes that she was in a small, comfortable room. There were curtains drawn across a window, and blue-ish light shone underneath the curtains. It was night, and it was quiet and cool.

Her forehead felt hot, and her body felt leaden. There was a faint, persistent stinging sensation in the back of her hand, where an IV butterfly was. It was covered by a light blue silk scarf she had never seen before. She tried to touch it with her other hand, but her entire body felt weighed down. Leadlike. Violet made a soft, whispered sound of protest, moving her head slightly on the pillow. She was too weak to do much more. She let her eyes close again.

Every muscle in her body was sore, stiff, and heavy. Her shoulder was achy and throbbing, and her ribs sent out a very faint message of protest. She felt alone and scared.

Violet drifted away again.

-

Time had no meaning in this strange, neutral room Violet was in. None at all. She would wake for a minute but she was too tired to evaluate her surroundings. Normally, it was night. It could have been minutes, hours, days in between each time she awoke. The sensation of timelessness confused her, made her feel like she was in a dangerous, gunmetal grey place, and she would try to get up so that she could run away. But she was too heavy.

She was warm, comfortable and dry. There were sheets beneath her back, and a light cover over her. The air was pleasantly cool. So then she would think no more of it, and would sleep again.

Once, there was a loud noise followed by an angry bout of whispering. Violet slumped into consciousness just long enough to breathe a note of protest, before slumbering again. Sometimes she felt someone held her hand. Sometimes she heard whispered voices, far away, like the wind whispering of ghosts. She paid them little heed. She felt tired and drained and utterly used up.

Violet was confused and alone, and she did not like it. Sometimes she had nightmares, ones where she would want to scream but she had no more energy left. She never remembered their content, but she was haunted by a feeling of being hunted, of being chased, and of being helpless. She had tried to save someone, she recalled distantly, but she hadn't been able to do it. Her failure echoed through her dreams.

Sometimes she heard someone murmuring something to her, a low, pleasant voice. The words made no sense, but the way they gripped her hand firmly and stroked her hair back from her face made her feel a little bit better. She didn't dream as much when she knew there was someone nearby.

-

Violet woke, and blinked her eyes a couple of times. She knew that this time she was fully awake.

She lay peacefully for a moment, just looking through drowsy eyes at the room she was in.

The walls were a soft, pleasant yellow colour, and the sheets she were lying in were cream-coloured. The faded orange curtains were drawn, but the first tinges of yellow-orange light were creeping up underneath them. There was a table beside the bed she was lying on, and a white clock said 05:52.

Her body may have been aching but her mind was rested and clear. She felt as if her brain had had the chance to process all of the information loaded upon her these last couple of weeks.

Including Syndrome.

She'd come to realise the ideals behind Syndrome's boyhood obsession with her father. In Syndrome, she recognised a lot of her father's qualities: focused on the job at hand, fast when he needed to be, maybe a little emotionally insecure. She also saw the blue eyes, the strong face, the hard-earned muscle. Mr. Incredible had left his mark - Syndrome was a caricature of her father's darker side, whether he recognised it or not.

But there were other questions she'd been working on, too.

_Why did he kiss me? Why did he not pull the trigger when he had the chance?_

She was pretty sure she knew.

Syndrome felt something for her. It was most probably not love: Violet had no reason to believe in love at first sight, after their previous encounters. But it was undoubtedly some kind of bond.

And although the chances were slim that it was love that Syndrome felt for her (impossible, most likely; they'd both been at each other's throats too often to be forgotten in a hurry), she got the impression that maybe, with time, he could have learned.

This was not the problem in Violet's head. She could live with that knowledge. What she was having trouble with was her own side of the argument.

_Could I learn to love him?_

_If love is wanting to be with someone because they understand you, because they're closer to you emotionally than perhaps you realise... then yes. I think_ _I've already_ begun _to learn_.

She didn't hate him, she knew that. Even though on numerous occasions he had tried to kill or kidnap someone directly related to her. Syndrome was intelligent, a leader, and since his ego had been knocked down a peg or twenty he was calmer, more eloquent, and less blatantly aggressive in his body language. Five years ago he was still a kid at heart. Now, after he he'd been forced to struggle uphill on the greasy slope of his reputation, he knew his own worth and how not to take things for granted. He was more _adult_ , although she found it a little hard to accept.

He'd attacked, kidnapped, shot at, tortured, electrocuted, drugged and taunted her. And yet she found she was angrier with him for causing this emotional turmoil. He'd hurt her. Gone out of his _way_ to make life uncomfortable for her, and now she was angry with him for _leaving her alone_.

Well, she wouldn't have to wait long. "I'm only going to hunt you down anyway," he'd said, and she knew he could do it. All she had to do was wait for him. And when he found her, whether he killed her or not, she had a few questions to ask him. She was too tired to fight him any more, and she was too tired to run.

She decided to sleep a little more.

-

When she woke again, it was to find Snug snoring gently in a chair beside her with his cap pulled down over his face. She tried to jerk upright, but her body was too stiff and too sore.

"Snug?" she croaked. Her throat was dry and sandy.

Snug snapped awake. He blearily regarded his surroundings for a second before focusing on Violet.

"You're awake?"

"Full marks for observation." She felt like she was trying to gargle sand. "Water?"

Snug lifted a glass from her bedside table and presented it to her, eyes serious and almost angry.

"What happened to you? Why were you on the island? _Who did this?_ "

Violet drank half of the glass, and immediately her throat felt better – less constricted. She didn't answer any of Snug's questions.

"Where am I?"

"Hospital. St. Vincent. Jesus, Violet, you have scared the _livin' daylights_ out of me and Red."

 _Red._ Something clicked in her brain.

"How is she? Where is she? Is she okay?"

Snug held up both hands. "She's sat outside, worrying her head off. Now lie down again. You ain't doing yourself any good, tryin' to sit up like that."

Violet lay back with a whispered groan. She was in a hospital gown. Her shoulder and ribcage were thickly bandaged, and there was a plastic tag around her wrist.

"Now, Violet. I want you to tell me what happened to you."

"I was on the island. Day I was due to go there was an earthquake. Made a bit of the building collapse. Used a shield to protect me 'n Red. Got caught by - by a supervillain."

Violet felt exhausted. Even this small speech had left her drained. Snug appeared to sense this, because he sat back with a sigh. "Okay. I won't press you anymore."

Violet nodded. Her eyelids felt heavy again.

"What happened t'me?"

"Brought you straight here after the missile fiasco. You had a fractured rib held together by a bolt, a bullet in your shoulder and very mild concussion. You also had the residue of some sort of drug floatin' around in your blood, although you were rid of most of it."

"Can I see Red?"

"Yeah." Snug stood up from his chair and walked across the room. He turned the door handle. "Red -"

Snug found himself flattened to the wall as a blonde figure rushed in and embraced Violet in a bone-crushing hug.

"Violet? Violet, can you talk to me?"

"'Course I can," said Violet, muffled by the force of Red's hug. Red straightened up and held her at arm's length, and Violet got a chance to survey her.

She looked tired and worried. She wore a t-shirt and jeans, with her yellow-blonde hair cascading down her shoulders. She smiled, and pulled her in for another hug. Violet took advantage of the situation.

"He's unmarried and single," she whispered. She felt Red stiffen for a second, then laugh into her shoulder. "And he owns a whole airport of planes," she added.

"A whole airport? Not trying to make up for something, is he?" Red murmured back.

"Why don't you find out?"

Red stepped back, laughter and tears glistening in her eyes. "You don't change, do you?"

Violet managed a smile. "Of course not."

"Violet - can you give me a number to contact your parents by?" asked Snug suddenly. Violet threw him a glance, wondering what to say.

Of course it was important that her parents knew about this - they needed to know Syndrome was alive and demonstrably kicking. But she wasn't sure. If she gave Snug a number, or address, there was a chance Syndrome could get hold of it.

That, and Syndrome had left his mark, not just in the way of scars. Constant torture and questioning - _where is your father? Where is Mr. Incredible?_ – had left her with an automated response to instantly clam up.

"I don't think they should know," she said in a low voice. Snug gave her a puzzled look. "I'm twenty. I can handle this, even though I needed you guys to pull me out of the fire, so to speak. I'm not a baby any more."

Snug and Red exchanged exasperated glances, although Violet was sure she detected a note of resignation. "Violet -" they started together in unison.

"Don't," Violet cut across tiredly. "I'm an adult. This was my chance to prove it, and I blew it." Not quite. She'd held up under torture, right? She'd fought her way from a guard-infested island, right? "I don't need them as much as they'd like to think. Please. Let me cope with this one. I know I can."

Red sighed, and placed a hand on her forehead. Violet appreciated the gesture - a cross between affectionate and medical.

"Temperature's gone down. Rest up."

"You sound just like Snug," she said with a smile, then closed her eyes. She drifted into a dark world.

-

Violet spent the next two days in a world of stiff yet mobile pain. She could walk, although her legs gave her hell for it. She preferred to stay in bed and stare out through the window, to the sight of azure sky and drifting clouds.

She could watch the sky for stretches of time, she'd discovered. The clouds were always different, always changing. It made her feel that, despite the last fortnight, everything was right with the world.

By the end of the second day, she was feeling quite perky most of the stiffness and soreness had died down, and she didn't feel the need to nap every fifteen minutes. As soon as she had been able to, she had changed from the depressing hospital gown into a t-shirt and a pair of shorts. They made her feel less like an invalid, and more like herself. Somehow, Red had managed to salvage her rucksack from Syndrome's island, and for that she was eternally grateful.

By the time she went to bed that evening, she felt she was well on the road to recovery. She was still tired, but it was not that bone-deep leaden feeling she had felt barely forty-eight hours ago. Red and Snug visited frequently, usually together, and Violet always had to suppress a grin when they got uncomfortable in each other's presence.

Everything was swell. Everything was fine. But the nightmares wouldn't leave her.

Sometimes, she'd lie awake for hours at a stretch, unable to sleep from fear that the thing that was chasing her would finally catch up. Sometimes, she would wake up from dreams of being hunted. She knew the common interpretation of these kinds of dreams was that she was running from a situation she couldn't face - and that it might not be far from the truth.

So when she woke that night, she was surprised to find it wasn't because of a dream. Someone had just shut the door to her room.

She froze, breathing minimal, whilst she tried to work out whether they'd come in, or gone out. She was just relaxing when she heard a brief movement of cloth.

 _Must be Snug or Red,_ she thought uncertainly. She decided to think no more about it, and snuggled down again.

At Violet's request, Snug had left the curtains open, so Violet watched the stars. She knew a few of the major constellation - canis major, the plough, Orion, Aries and others. Some of them weren't visible from this latitude, but she amused herself by making her own constellations. Tonight's letter was 'p'. The pineapple... the pickup truck... the oddly-shaped pig...

She felt herself slowly drifting towards sleep. But then - a flash of a dream that awaited her - and she jolted upright in bed, instantly awake, and with a few grumbled complaints from her achy joints.

Violet rubbed the back of her hand, where the itch from the IV needle (taken out yesterday) had not properly faded. Sighing, she propped up her pillow at the head of the bed and sat up properly, rubbing her hands across her face.

She had discovered the insomniac's world: terrible, drawn-out hours; excruciating boredom; and the terrible feeling that, whilst everyone else was happily dozing away, you were all on your own in the world.

So, the first chance she'd got, she had sent Snug down to one of the tourist shops on the island with a twenty-dollar note and strict orders for him to bring back the thickest book he could find. Evidently taking Violet at her word and using a ruler as his judge, he'd come back with 'Crime and Punishment' by Dostoevsky (although how he'd gotten hold of a Russian classic on a tourist destination was beyond her.) There weren't many laughs in it, but it kept her occupied throughout her sleepless nights. And so now she felt around for the lamp on the bedside table and flipped the switch on, bathing the room in sudden yellow light.

She turned, and had one hand placed on her book when she remembered her visitor.

Her eyes shot up, to find a complete stranger sat in a chair on the other side of the table, and watching her discovery with something akin to amusement.

At least, for a moment, she thought he was a stranger. Then her eyes noted the chopped, fiery orange hair, the pale blue eyes, and the silver scar that ran like a river down his left temple.

Her heartbeat sped and she felt the first unpleasant tingling sensations of adrenaline. _Oh, God. Not again._

"Bad dream?"

Violet's vocal chords were on strike, but she bullied them into action. "Maybe."

He chuckled. Violet found herself staring in sheer incredulity. Syndrome looked exactly the same, apart from a few essential differences: he was without his mask and wrist controls. He could pass for a civilian. Just. And it was interesting, the way his mask had made him seem a little younger by hiding the few fine lines around his eyes.

"How did you find me?" Her voice was dangerously quiet.

"Hacked into the medical computer network for the Caribbean, checked all recent hospital admissions on nearby islands, and _your_ passport popped _right_ up."

"So, is this a purely considerate visit, or are you planning something? Again?"

Suddenly, Syndrome's mirth was gone, to be replaced with an air of seriousness.

"A twenty-year-old girl escaped from my island, almost completely unaided, under her own power. A _twenty-year-old_. I've come to tell you that you've persuaded me to pack up the business. I'm too old for this." His finger was tracing the part of the scar on his neck; his eyes were thoughtful.

Violet sat forward a little, frowning very slightly in disbelief. "Pardon?"

"I'm too old for this stuff. I'm packing it in and packing it up. I still have a lot of money left over in Swiss bank accounts, from selling my inventions, so I'm just gonna buy me a new identity and go live someplace. I have all the money I'll ever need."

Violet found this an extremely bizarre mental image. "And get an office job?" she hazarded, half-joking. How could a person go from dictator of a small island to office joe, all in a couple of weeks? She still couldn't quite believe _Syndrome_ was in her room, much less be telling her all this. She was in shock. Again.

Syndrome appeared to sense this. He shrugged, and looked out of the window. "I don't know. Maybe. I guess I just came to say goodbye, and thanks for showing me where to draw the line before I got my butt kicked by someone who went out of their way to find me."

"So..." Violet hardly dared hope. "You're not gonna bother pursuing my dad?"

She saw his knuckles go white - then he relaxed his hand again. "No. I told you - I'm too old for it. A twenty-year-old beat me. I think I'm past my prime in _that_ department."

"Define 'too old'."

"I'm nearing thirty."

Violet stared at him for a moment, debating whether or not to believe him about her father.

_It can wait 'til later. I have some questions I would like answers to..._

"Why did you kiss me?" asked Violet abruptly. Syndrome turned to look at her, anger growing in his eyes. Violet had decided that, in light of the recent revelations, they might as well get everything else out in the open. Her heart had started to beat faster again.

"Well?"

Syndrome looked away, fury smouldering inside his eyes. "I don't know," he said gruffly.

Violet knew it to be the truth, because it certainly explained lot of things. His anger, for example, was not directed at her: it was directed at himself. He was annoyed because he couldn't figure out why, either. Violet got the feeling she wasn't the only one running from something.

Violet's heart was doing triple-time.

"Do you want to kiss me again?"

Syndrome glanced at her quickly, and then looked away again. A muscle bunched in his jaw for a moment, and his knuckles whitened slightly. "No," he responded through clenched teeth.

 _Ah_ , thought Violet. Her heart had calmed somewhat, now she knew he lying (literally) through his teeth. She settled back against her pillow again, never taking her eyes from a distinctly uncomfortable-looking Syndrome.

Suddenly, he stood up, and strode toward the door.

"Syndrome "

"Not any more."

"Stay."

She saw him stop short, a foot from the door.

"Please," she added softly.

She could only imagine the expression on his face. Violet drew the covers on her bed back, and slipped out onto her feet. She was worried for a moment that they wouldn't hold her, but no; she was fine.

"Why should you want me to stay?" he asked, without turning around. Violet took a few tentative steps forwards, until she was about two feet behind him.

"The same reason why you came to see me."

He turned, startled; he obviously hadn't heard her coming up behind him. She stared up at him, a little defiantly, arms folded over her chest.

"You have absolutely no reason why you should be doing this," he growled. And his growl sent a little tingle running along the length of her spine, almost making her shiver. She closed her eyes for a second, and when she opened them, it was to find Syndrome glaring down at her, his own arms folded over his chest.

_He thinks I'm playing games with him._

Violet returned his glare, surprisingly effectively for someone a noticeable few inches shorter than the other. _He's a different person now. It's okay. I don't have to feel like I'm betraying my family. I don't have to feel like I'm betraying myself._

And she didn't.

"I have every reason in the world," she growled in return. Taking a few steps forward, she placed one delicate hand on the curve of his neck, and kissed him.

It was everything she could have wished for. His confusion and apprehension melted away almost immediately as he returned her favour, his arms winding about her waist, pulling her closer to him, her own arms about his neck. And for that moment in time, both their fears were absolved; for that single crystal chime in space both of them were truly satisfied, and they knew that things were as they were meant to be. And nothing else mattered.

-

"You know, I never thought I'd be back here again," said Violet in a low voice.

She stood on the sandy beaches of Syndrome's island, scanning that familiar, flat-topped horizon.

Syndrome shrugged, and for a moment their hands touched. Both paused for a second, unused to this contact. It had been a strange, brief transition from the victim/master relationship to a relationship of an entirely different sort.

"Why did you put so much trust in me?" he asked at last. "I had given you no reason for you to."

Violet turned her head to look at him. He stood, staring out to the horizon. She took a look around her, before answering.

The island floated on the sea, lush and calm in the tropical sun. The white harbour building was just in sight, a little further around the curve of the island. Behind her the forest rustled with life, and shone a deep, healthy, tropical green.

"I know," she said at last. "I just needed you to do the job which you had come to do."

"And I did."

Violet unconsciously rubbed her right collarbone. "Most definitely."

She looked out to the harbour building. It had been about six days since her escape from this island, and already she was back on it, albeit in an entirely different manner than that she had expected.

She had told Snug and Red that she had wanted to continue her trip, finish the islands. They said that the supervillain might still be out to get her. She said he was dead. It was true, in a way.

So there were tears and gruff hugs, promises to stay in touch. Violet intended to honour those promises - it would be easy to keep in contact with Snug, but harder for Red - the port on the island was shutting down, after all. So she had given Red her parents' home address, with strict instructions to send the details of her new posting there. And that was that. They went their separate ways.

And now she stood on sand she had sworn to herself she would never see again, and wondered what they were going to do next.

She glanced to her left to see Syndrome with a very thoughtful expression on his face. She raised an eyebrow.

"Yes?"

He shot her a quick glance. "Will you be going home?"

Violet shrugged, a little depressed at the idea. The vague horror that preceded the thought of a mundane life returned. She didn't want to be like her parents: spending her life helping others, with a steady job to hide behind and few visions for the future. She wanted to go where the wind blew; she wanted to be pointed in the direction of the ocean currents, and swept along to God-knew-where. Violet wanted to see the world, before the world decided it didn't want to see her. She wanted _life_ ; not _suburbia_.

She made a non-committal noise. Syndrome was still watching her.

"Want to travel instead?"

Violet's head shot around, a fierce joy rising up iside her.

" _What?_ "

"We have money, and we have all the time in the world. And I imagine you're not the type to get tied down to one place. Am I right?"

She said nothing: her broad smile spoke volumes for her. And she felt Syndrome's hand creep around hers, hold tight. She squeezed back.

"I'm not gonna get used to calling you 'Buddy', you know," she said conversationally. Syndrome frowned a little.

"Why not?"

"'Syndrome' is a name you built for yourself; I was wrong when I asked you why. I think that 'Buddy' is a different person to who you are now."

"I'm not ashamed of who I was. I did what I did and I don't take it back."

The quiet anger in his voice startled her. "I wasn't rebuking you for it," she said calmly, staring out to sea. "And I wasn't saying you should be ashamed. Syndrome built an empire: Buddy was, when my dad last knew him, a child. But Mr. Incredible was the one who made the mistake, not you, and he'll admit it. I don't know if he'd forgive you by trying to take it out on his family, but my dad will admit to his mistakes. That was one of them, and he kne- knows it."

Syndrome said nothing, and Violet continued. "I know you don't want his forgiveness, and I know that you're still angry with him. But what more do you need? I figure you're old enough to let it go... maybe mid-twenties wasn't mature enough, but maybe 'nearly thirty' is."

"Wise words for one so young."

"Well, whether he likes it or not, Mr. Incredible going to have to put up with it, because _you_ , Syndrome," she said teasingly, grinning up at him, "have managed to seduce his eldest. It's tough."

Syndrome smiled back at her, the first genuine smile she had ever seen him wear. He didn't look away, and she saw something in his eyes that made her heart swell: _he's well on the way to learning, I think. As am I._

"D'you think this all would have happened, without the Virus?" said Violet.

Syndrome stared at her for a long while. She waited: she knew, after having chance to observe his behaviour close-hand, that he was lining up his thoughts in his head.

"No," he said at last, somewhat flatly. "I've never had anyone tell me they didn't want me to die."

"Except Mirage, perhaps?" prodded Violet, a little smilingly. Syndrome gave a short laugh. "Five or six years can change people. Bear in mind she reversed that decision pretty quickly."

"I know," she whispered.

She gently rested her other hand on the hard, muscular expanse of his forearm. He was down to a t-shirt in the heated weather of his island, exposing more of his collected scars: _"...when you are surrounded by flying pieces of razor-sharp metal it is bound to leave a mark somewhere."_

And it had. It had. His forearms were slashed with a few silver streaks, reminisces of that incident, five years long gone quite frankly, he'd got off lightly on his face, compared to what Violet thought might be on his back. Idly, she traced one of the silver streaks with her thumb, and felt a very slight shiver run through him. Given time, she'd just have to find out, wouldn't she?

He started to pull away from her slightly, just enough to move his arm from her grasp. She got the impression that he was ashamed of the scars.

"They're beautiful," she murmured. "They're _you_. Don't ever run from that."

He looked at her, an odd light shining in his eyes. "Why is it you know more about how I work than I do?" he asked, with a small smile. Then, somewhat abruptly, he kissed her, and Violet was happy to go with the flow for a while. Then she pulled away from him for a second.

"I know where we should start our trip," she said. He raised an eyebrow in his now-trademark sardonic gesture.

"Yeeeeah?"

"What about Mexico?"

"Mexico?"

"The locals say the Pacific has no memory. So let's start our trip there. I'm not saying that I should forget your past, and vice versa, but we can start from a clean slate."

"I like it."

They kissed again. Violet decided that she liked the look of a thoroughly-kissed Syndrome/Buddy. And whatever happened in their relationship, they would progress a step at a time. She was happy; oh God, she was happy.

Under gently waving palm trees, in the warm air of the Caribbean, they headed back to harbour.


End file.
